


The Tenant Of Campbell Hall

by ProfessorFlimflam



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Landlady & Tenant AU, Misunderstandings, Scrub In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-08 04:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15923351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: Following Adrienne’s death, Serena let out her granny annexe as a means of making up the shortfall from an unwise investment she made some years ago. Her tenant gives notice to quit, and she can’t afford to let it stand empty for long. With some help from a colleague, she gives the place a makeover to maximise income, and it gets snapped up straight away.When Serena strikes up a friendship with the new locum on Keller - one Bernie Wolfe - she gradually learns about her disintegrating marriage, and wishes she hadn’t been so hasty to rent the little flat out - if only she could offer it to Bernie. But Bernie has already found a nice little place for herself - a little flat just next to a leafy detached in a well-heeled suburb of Holby.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kooili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kooili/gifts).



> With thanks to HC Scrub In, and to @kooili for the prompt. This is the last of the Harvest Home competition prizes, and it was a beauty of a prompt.

“Hello, am I speaking to Serena Campbell? Good afternoon Ms Campbell, it’s Isabelle Firman, from Homes From Home. I’m afraid it’s bad news: Mr Jordan has given his notice to quit at the end of next month.”

Serena, frantically looking through a pile of folders for a file required urgently by the hospital’s legal team, had barely caught a word. “Jordan? Jordan who? I don’t know anyone called Jordan. Why on earth would I care if they’ve quit their job? Really, I haven’t got time for gossip and tittle tattle.”

There was a brief puzzled silence on the other end of the phone, and then an exclamation of understanding. “Oh - no, not his job - it’s Isabelle from the letting agency - Mr Jordan is your tenant? In your granny annexe? He’s advised us that he’ll be moving out at the end of April?”

Biting back an urge to snap, _Are you asking me or telling me?_ Serena sighed. “Oh, that’s too bad. I mean that’s actually really very bad timing for me. Does he say why he’s leaving? Is there anything wrong with the flat? And I do wish you wouldn’t call it a granny annexe - it’s a small apartment for independent living. I have told you this before. I hope you don’t call it a granny annexe when you advertise it. What does he want, anyway - lower rent? A lick of paint? A new cooker?”

Unfazed by Serena’s bad temper, Isabelle soothed her. “Oh, no there’s nothing wrong with the apartment - he’s leaving Holby, moving up to Yorkshire, I believe. He’s given his two months’ notice and paid up until the end of April as per the tenancy agreement, but he’s actually leaving next week, so if we’re quick, we might be able to get a month of double rent for you. Though - the inspection report does indicate that it would benefit from redecoration throughout before you next let it out, if that’s what you choose to do.”

“Yorkshire? What on earth does he want to go there for? Oh, well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Look, hold fire before you advertise it again - I’ll see if I really need to let it out any more - it would so useful to have the extra space again now, and it’s such a bother having to deal with all the rental side of things.”

Isabelle, for whom this particular tenancy had been far more bother than Serena knew, held her peace, knowing better than to further antagonise the redoubtable Ms Campbell (for everyone at Homes From Home knew what it meant when a client file was marked with a red dot in the top right hand corner - _Volatile, handle with care)._ She left Serena with a brief reminder of the end of tenancy process, including the requirement for her to release funds from the Tenancy Deposit Protection scheme once any deductions had been made for repairs and so on.

Hanging up, Serena gazed with mild despair at the pile of folders she still had to go through, and shook off the irritations of the phone call to resume her search. One little phrase stuck in her head, though. Tenancy Deposit Protection scheme. What on earth was that when it was at home?

***

It wasn’t until she got home that evening that she had time to process the phone call and its implications. She had eventually unearthed the required folder, but that had only been the start of a long rigmarole involving the legal team, several clinical colleagues and something of a dressing down from Henrik on the topic of record keeping and the storage of confidential data. She poured herself a large glass of something expensive, lowered herself wearily into her favourite armchair and put on _Relaxing Classics at Seven_ , humming tunelessly along to the familiar, unchallenging music.

Picking up her phone, she flicked through several apps, checking her email, reading and instantly dismissing the news headlines, tutting at some indiscreet post of Elinor’s on Facebook, and sniggering at something equally indiscreet a favourite actor had tweeted. She ended up with her thumb hovering over her search app, remembering vaguely that there was something she had been meaning to look up. What was it? Something about the flat at the end of her garden, she thought. A deposit scheme. She opened the app and searched, then opened the result that looked most reputable, a gov.uk page. With a mounting sense of unease, she read:

_“You must place your tenants’ deposit in a tenancy deposit protection (TDP) scheme… you or your letting agent must put your tenants’ deposit in the scheme within 30 days of getting it…”_

Well, she remembered receiving the deposit all right: it had come in very handy for making sure Elinor had all the text books and equipment she needed for her college course at the time, whatever _that_ had been - there had been so many that Serena could barely tell week to week what her wayward daughter was studying. She had dipped into the deposit as a sort of payday loan to herself - but with one thing and another, she had a horrible feeling that she had never paid it back to herself. A quick check on her banking app confirmed that the account she had labelled Granny Annexe (for in spite of her protestations to Isabelle, that was exactly what it was) was standing nearly empty.

She looked back at the government page. The schemes were there to avoid exactly this eventuality, she realised. How could she have known two years ago how financially demanding Elinor’s long succession of potential careers and consequent flip-flops between university courses would be? Or that she would be taking in the nephew that she didn’t even know she had? And of course, she couldn’t have known that Liam Jordan would be quitting her little apartment and leaving her high and dry. She knew it was unreasonable to be cross with him when it was she who had spent the deposit, but it was easier to direct her irritation at him rather than inwards, where it rightfully belonged.

 _Oh well_ , she thought. _I’d better give Jonathan a call in the morning, dip into the old investment ISA again_.

But when she phoned her financial advisor early the next day, he sounded positively stern with her.

“Serena, this account was always meant to be a long term savings plan, to supplement your pension, yet you’ve been draining it consistently over the last few years, despite all my advice to the contrary. The odd few thousand here and there soon adds up, you know.”

“Well, yes, of course it does, but I’m only withdrawing a thousand or so - oh, here we are, one thousand two hundred pounds, less whatever deductions for damages and so on.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then Jonathan’s voice came wearily down the line. “Serena, do you _ever_ read the statements I’ve been sending you? Do you even open them? You say ‘only’ twelve hundred pounds, but that’s more than is in your ISA now. The well has run dry.”

Serena was shocked. “What? It can’t have done! I put something like eighty thousand in there after the divorce!”

“Yes, and you’ve taken more than that out again - any interest you might have accrued is long gone, and your current balance is a little under eight hundred pounds. I _have_ been warning you about this for several years, you know.”

A silence stretched out for long seconds, before Serena said in a small voice, “What do I do now? I have to find twelve hundred pounds by the time the tenant quits, and if the flat’s standing empty for any time after that - well, I'm screwed, aren’t I?”

Jonathan sighed again. “Look, Serena - I think it’s time you came in to the office and we had a proper look at your finances, and make a plan to get you back on track. I’m going to advance you the sum you need for the deposit, on the condition that you set aside a day to spend drawing up a budget and savings plan to replenish the ISA. I’ll help you, but you’ll need to be prepared to make some sacrifices, as will your daughter - I know she’s helped you run the account down, and it’s time to draw some firmer lines. Deal?”

“Deal! Oh, Jonathan, I can't thank you enough. I’ll be better, I promise. Let me have a look at my shifts and I’ll send you my availability - you’re right, I think I need to start Personal Finance for Dummies as soon as possible.”

***

“Engine been growling or whining?”

Bernie was glad of the distraction. She had been scowling at her phone which had pinged a moment or two earlier with a message from Marcus asking her how it was going. _Shitting hell, I’ve only been here five minutes - just get off my case, will you?_ she muttered to herself. She had already started furiously tapping the same message back to him, when she noticed an attractive woman in a long cardigan (that Bernie thought did her no favours) berating her car, or her mechanic - she couldn’t quite make out the finer points, but she got the gist.

Her own mechanical prowess was enough to diagnose the problem but not treat it, but she was glad to have made the acquaintance of one Serena Campbell. She had been so friendly and open that it seemed like a positive omen for her stint as a locum here at Holby City, and glancing back down to her phone, she saw the message that she had started typing in resentment, and pondering it for just a moment, she repurposed it. _Shift going great_ , she replied. Well, so far, it was.

By the time she left at the end of that first, oddly tense day, the little green car was gone - fixed or towed, she couldn’t tell. Her hand reached automatically for her pocket before she remembered that she had given away her last cigarette, and she blew out a frustrated huff of a laugh. Serena Campbell had called it “a bit pants” as a symbol of independence anyway, and she was right. Bernie hoped their paths would cross again - that little exchange had been the brightest moment of her day.

***

“I’d so hoped that this would be the last time I’d have to let the flat out - it would be so useful to be able to have Jason over from time to time without Robbie feeling as though we can’t... relax together, if you know what I mean.”

No-one would ever dare to suggest that Serena could whine, as such, but there was a truculence in her voice that made Donna smile behind the patient file she was carrying.

“You really need to rent it out? Mr Hanssen doesn’t pay his senior staff well enough, is that it?”

Shooting her a look that clearly said _don’t push your luck_ , Serena shook her head and waved a hand dismissively. “I have no complaints about my salary, and I wouldn’t dream of voicing it in front of my staff if I had. No, I’m well aware I’m at the top of my pay grade after all this time, but it’s not quite as simple as that, unfortunately. When I divorced my disappointment of an ex-husband, I was determined to stay in the house - I’d worked bloody hard to get that place, and it’s the house Elinor grew up in - but the only way I could keep it was to re-mortgage - I couldn’t keep up the payments on just my own salary. I could kick myself now, but at the time, an interest only mortgage seemed like quite an enticing proposition.”

Donna’s expression said it all. “You didn’t?”

“I’m very much afraid that I did. But I wasn’t stupid - I’d been saving like billy-o ever since, and I had a nice little pot put away to pay off the capital when the time came - but then my mother became ill, and I couldn’t bear to put her into a home - we visited a few, and there was nowhere I felt happy leaving her, so I built the flat, and that pretty much wiped out what I’d saved to repay the mortgage. So - lodgers it is for the foreseeable future, alas. Well, tenants.”

“Must be strange,” Donna mused, “having people living in your back garden. Do they have to come through the house to get to the flat?”

“Oh, heavens, no! What an awful thought. No, there’s a separate entrance - it’s not even on the same street - the door to the flat is round the corner from my own front door. I wanted Mum to have a certain amount of independence, then after she - well, later on when I let it out for the first time, I put a fence across the bottom of the garden to provide a bit of privacy. It's always worked well as an arrangement - I never see hide nor hair of them.”

Donna, who had been diligently sorting through the filing cabinet as they chatted, stopped in confusion. “You never see them? Don’t you go round with the rent book?”

“The rent book?” Serena laughed. “It’s not _Rising Damp_ , Donna, things have moved on a bit from that. The agency deals with all that side of things. I doubt they even know their landlady lives at the end of their garden, to be honest - I told the agency I wanted to be completely hands-off, and they’ve never needed to get me involved.”

Slotting the last of the files into its place, Donna turned and leaned against the cabinet. “So you’re advertising for a new tenant, then? I can ask around the nurses if you like, there’s usually someone or other looking for accommodation?”

Serena smiled warmly at her. “That’s very kind of you, Donna, but my financial advisor has suggested I smarten the place up and raise the rent - he thinks I ought to be able to pretty much double it if I make a few changes. I suspect it will be out of the price range for most of the nurses. And I don’t know that I want to come home at night knowing that one of my colleagues is just the other side of the fence. I suppose it would suit a young professional, or perhaps someone who just needs to be in Holby Monday to Friday.”

“Fair enough.” Donna smiled at her. “You’ll be getting an interior designer in then, I suppose, tart it up a bit?”

With a sigh more dramatic than the situation really merited, Serena shook her head. “I wish! No, Jonathan’s been very clear about my budget, and it doesn’t stretch to getting a specialist in. I’m going to have a busy old time once the current incumbent moves out - I’ll be doing it all myself, unless you know of anyone who’d do it for a box of chocolates and a bottle of Shiraz,” she said glumly.

Serena looked so dejected that Donna only hesitated for the briefest of moments. “Someone with champagne tastes but cider wages?” She smiled at her boss, a twinkle in her eye. “Someone who got used to the high life and has learned to fake it on a nurse’s wages, say?”

The puzzled look on Serena’s face gave way to hopefulness. “Oh, Donna - do you mean it? Would you really help me upgrade it? I’d be so grateful.”

“Help you pimp your crib? Serena, if there’s one thing I enjoy more than spending money, it’s spending someone else’s - and I know where all the best bargains are to be had. We’ll have it looking like a penthouse suite in no time.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie and Ric have been at odds all day, Marcus won’t stop texting her, and now Sacha is on her case as well - how much easier it was to cope with a stoic squaddie than with a woman facing the premature end of her hopes of motherhood! With criticism and complaints mounting up, it seems as though her only ally is the woman she met briefly on her first day - fellow caffeine addict Serena Campbell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have said thank you when I posted the first chapter to my lovely HC Scrub In cheerleader, @LipstickLovingSapphic. Thanks for keeping me on track and giving me a little boost just when I needed it the most :-)
> 
> This chapter is very episode-reliant, as are several more to come. The story is canon compliant right up until the last chapter or so - unless you count me re-employing Donna sooner than HC did. Got to love a bit of DJ!

Bernie had been butting heads with Ric Griffin all day, mostly over the treatment and care of Mr Sheridan, his old school teacher. Learning of his boxing hobby, she had teasingly called him Rocky Griffin - not entirely kindly - and the name was sticking. He was certainly as muttonheaded as any old punch drunk pugilist, she thought.

Jesse Law had cornered her on the stairs where she was taking a breather, and in her frustration, she had labelled Ric an _incompetent, arrogant, egotistical martinet_. Jesse, who had known Ric much longer than Bernie, had urged caution and tolerance: “We all have off days, we’re only human,” he placated her.

“I seem to be having nothing _but_ off days at the moment. Truth is, I miss what I had, way too much. I promised my family I’d give it a shot, but I’m not sure I can hack it.”

Jesse looked at her sympathetically as he left her to her musings: they were all aware of her illustrious career in the RAMC, and how different she must be finding things here in Holby. Only Bernie could know that it was not the Army she was missing, but what she had shared with one of her colleagues.

“No good thinking about that now,” she berated herself, “Not if you really want to make a go of things with The Husband.” It was a silly habit she had got into, calling Marcus _The Husband_ , rather than by his given name. Somehow that little bit of distance the title gave made it easier to cope with the situation, helped fend off the guilt she felt about her relationship with Captain Dawson. Helped, too, to remind her that she had an obligation to her family, to Marcus himself.

How disheartening, though, that it felt like such an obligation, this contract of marriage. How dreary that she needed the constant reminder of their status as husband and wife to remind her to be with him, to deny the desires that had come so strongly to her later in life.

Her new friend from the car park was having more luck than her, according to hospital gossip. She had overheard the young Scottish doctor from AAU giggling over seeing Serena Campbell snogging a burly copper in the car park that morning, and by all accounts they were on the verge of shacking up together. Well, good for her. At least someone was happy in their relationship.

***

Serena was queuing impatiently in Pulses at the start of her shift when she heard a low voice beside her.

“Do you remember when coffee was just coffee?” There was her mechanic friend from the car park again, looking about as wide awake as she herself felt.

“Strong and hot’s all I care about on a day like today,” she said warmly.

“Aye aye!” _What a voice she’s got_ , thought Serena - _so deep! But not at all masculine. Rather lovely, actually_.

Bemoaning the busy day she knew she had ahead of her, she joked, “What I wouldn’t give for a couple of calm shifts on Keller! How are you finding the quieter life, by the way?”

“Oh… mm, it’s a relief,” Bernie said, trying to convince herself, but Serena’s coffee was ready, and with an apologetic smile and a hasty farewell, she bustled off towards AAU.

Just as she was about to order her coffee, Bernie’s phone rang. _The Husband_ , the screen read - again. Her thumb hovered over the screen - really, this was getting ridiculous - but even as she touched the button to decline the call, she heard banging coming from behind her, and a horrible strangled coughing as a customer choked on her pastry. 

Jumping straight into well-practiced action, Bernie moved behind her and clasped her hands under the woman’s rib cage, jerking her thumbs upwards and back sharply in the Heimlich manoeuvre. Calmly giving instructions to the panicking woman, Bernie was aware of Dr Digby standing uselessly looking on, and ordered him to fetch a crichothyrotomy kit. Within moments, she had made an airway, foregoing the unnecessary step of opening with a scalpel first, to Arthur’s consternation. 

“This is how we do it in the great outdoors - bracing isn’t it?” She grinned up at him happily.

And there was no mistaking the lift the little adventure had given her: she hadn’t got so much as a sniff of coffee yet, but she’d take adrenaline over caffeine any day, and she strode confidently onto Keller once the patient had been transferred, ready for what ever the day had to throw at her. 

***

It wasn’t only the coffee Bernie had managed without: Marcus’s call had gone unanswered, and she didn’t give him another thought until the early evening, sitting on a cold metal bench in the ambulance bay with the coffee she should have had much sooner. So much for the quieter life, she thought bitterly. It had been a terrible day, with criticism from Sacha and Hanssen over her brusque bedside manner; a misjudged competition she had set Drs Digby and Copeland in an effort to make the ward more efficient; a complaint from a patient who felt she had been steamrolled into an ovarectomy, and a disastrous outcome for the woman’s sister, for whom preventive surgery was much, much too late. 

Hanssen had more than hinted at the uncertainty of Bernie’s future here at Holby, and she couldn’t help but brood on how badly the day had turned out after its promising start.

“Busted again!” She heard the smoky voice interrupt her gloomy thoughts, and looked up to see Serena, another cup of coffee in her hand. She was relieved to have the distraction, and moved along the bench fractionally in an invitation for the other woman to join her.

“Don’t worry, I can keep a secret,” she said.

“Mind if I join you? I’m guessing you’ve had one of those days too.”

Serena’s voice was kind, and rich with understanding. The question didn’t need a response, really. Trying to put her thoughts together, unsure quite why she felt drawn to share her mood with this new friend - acquaintance, really - Bernie bought herself a little time. “Do you have a family?” she asked.

Serena leaned in a little, as though she were sharing a confidence, and there was an empathetic twinkle in her eye. “Ah, well, if you count a grown up daughter who only ever calls when she wants something, an unfortunate ex husband and a lovely - but rather challenging nephew, then - yes, I have a family.”

Looking out into the empty ambulance bay, then glancing up as though to ward off tears, Bernie said, “I took this job to save my marriage. Well, at least try to do the whole work-life balance thing.”

“Why not take the easy road and try curing cancer…” Serena tried to lighten the mood with a joke, but Bernie was slightly wild-eyed now. 

“I need to make a go of it, I _have_ to make a go of it, otherwise -”

“Otherwise everything will fall apart and it will be your fault?”

“Yep. Something like that.”

Serena hesitated for a heartbeat, then said with a note of slightly forced joviality, as though she were nervous to suggest it, “Silly to keep meeting up like this. Next time you need a caffeine shot and a chat you should just - call me.”

Only then did Bernie look up and make eye contact. But any further confidences she might have shared were forestalled by Sacha, whose news that Janet Wallace was refusing treatment sent Bernie running back up to Keller.

***

As hard as Bernie had tried to make things right for Janet, it was clear that the cancer was too far advanced to allow even so much as egg harvesting, let alone give the woman time to carry a pregnancy to term. She had swallowed her pride and taken advice from Sacha on improving her interactions with patients, but had taken two steps back when he revealed that he had been obliged to follow up on a patient whose treatment had been rushed due to the competition she had set the youngsters.

“Treating them is like a conversation, us and them working together,” Sacha had explained, and she had put that philosophy into action immediately. The complaint against her had been withdrawn, and she felt that she had made steps towards becoming the kind of surgeon she needed to be to stay at Holby.

“I took this job for my husband, but I want to keep it for me, and not just as a locum. If you and Keller will have me?” 

She had all but begged Hanssen to give her another chance in the light of her new understanding of the kind of ward Keller aspired to be, and for now the decision rested with him. She had promised the team a good night of team bonding at Albie’s, and as she joked with Sacha and the boys, she heard a voice that was rapidly becoming familiar.

“Mind if I join in?”

Bernie smiled. Funny, but that voice had framed and punctuated her day today, as Serena had caught her at her lowest, and now at her highest point.

“Not at all - but I’m telling you now, we’re not drinking coffee!”

Serena smiled conspiratorially at her, and Bernie felt the last of the day’s stresses lift from her shoulders as she returned the smile, full and wide and warm.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena and Donna start making plans for bringing the granny annexe up to scratch. Bernie is working hard to rebuild relationships with her children, just as Serena is forced to prioritise the relationships in her life.
> 
> Warning: contains traces of 1 (one) potato-faced man.

Chapter 3

Donna hadn’t been kidding, Serena realised as she looked round the nurse’s living room. She really did have a taste for the luxurious, and it was hard to believe that she had managed it on the budget she had mentioned to Serena. The decor wasn’t to Serena’s personal taste, but she could see that it had been carefully designed and expertly put together with an eye for detail and a feel for quality.

“Donna, this is amazing! How on earth did you manage it for under four figures? The sofa alone must be worth more than a grand, surely?”

Looking pleased with herself, Donna nodded. “It is. The list price is something like three and a half. But I got it from a friend who was refurbishing her salon, and she needed to get rid of it quickly. I borrowed a van from my brother, and he gave me hand getting it up here - then it was a nice little restoration job for me. It’s amazing what you can do with a bit of leather restorer and a whole lot of patience,” she beamed.

Serena was impressed. “What you know _and_ who you know, eh?”

“Something like that - and a bit of luck with the timing, and being willing to put in a bit of work with it. Most of the furniture’s ex-display, the wallpaper was an end-of-line reduction, and the tiles in the bathroom were left over from a job my mate Billy was doing up in Wyvern Grange, so he let me have them for a knockdown price and a pint or two.”

Serena gazed around her, still slightly dazed by the opulence of the room, and not a little daunted at the thought of turning her dowdy little granny annexe into something rivalling this showroom perfection.

“And you think this is the sort of look I should be going for?” she asked tentatively.

Donna laughed. “I wouldn’t have thought so, to be honest. This is very much my style - but you probably want something a bit more neutral for letting it out. I reckon you want to go for something classy but simple, something that looks expensive but that we can achieve on a tighter budget. I thought we could go through a load of magazines and see if anything caught your eye.”

As she spoke, she dropped a thick stack of glossy magazines on the coffee table, making Serena jump a little. She looked askance at the price of the top copy, and raised an eyebrow at Donna. “You could have bought the sofa new if you hadn't bought all these,” she remarked, but Donna shook her head.

“Waiting room rejects,” she explained. “I go through all the magazines once every couple of weeks and pass them on to my friend for her salon, but I like to keep the home and style ones for a bit. I get lots of ideas from them - but ignore the price tags inside. It’s just to get a bit of inspiration.”

A family hilarious hour and a half later, Serena’s notebook had several pages of notes and sketches jotted down. They had settled between them on a combination of soft greys, leather, natural wood and the odd touch of chrome, a look they agreed spoke of understated elegance, and which shouldn’t date too quickly.

“Right. So where do we start?” Serena looked expectantly at her interior designer, keen to press on with the project now that she had an idea of what she was aiming for.

“Site inspection, I reckon,” Donna said firmly. “When’s your chap moving out?”

Serena glanced at the calendar on her phone. “Goodness - it’s actually this weekend he’s going! I’d got the end of next month in my head, but that’s when he stops paying rent. So we can go and do a recce any time after Saturday morning. I’ll have a look at the rota tomorrow see when we’re both free, shall I?”

“No need,” said Donna as she popped through to the kitchen. “I always run a copy off to have here. Look - I’m on an early shift Saturday, then not on again until Monday morning. Looks like you're free all weekend, you lucky thing. How about Sunday morning? Or I could swing by on my way home from work on Saturday?”

Serena shook her head. “You go straight home and put your feet up on Saturday. It can wait until Sunday, once you’ve had your lie in. Now,” she waggled the bottle of wine. “Let me pour this, and you can show me the rest of your gorgeous flat.” 

***

As Serena arrived for work, she overheard Bernie tearing a strip off someone over the phone - something about going out to buy milk, though from the hearty laugh, it seemed to be a fairly good natured telling off. Catching her eye, Bernie explained that her son, Cameron, was at home.

“Even when they’re old enough to sleep around and get completely wasted, they still want you to be mummy,” Serena sympathised. Goodness knew that Elinor certainly expected her mother to be at her beck and call.

Bernie wistfully admitted that it wasn’t necessarily where her strengths as a parent lay.

“I have this fantasy…” she began, and Serena gave a little mental double take as she wondered where this was going, but apparently Bernie’s dearest dream was to be Maria Von Trapp, and she made the obligatory quip about making clothes out of curtains.

Laughing as they walked in to the hospital lobby together, Bernie confided, “Maddening as they are, I am enjoying getting to know them again.”

Serena smiled and bumped her shoulder. “Must be nice being back into the family fold again after so long.”

“Yep, it’s wonderful.” But the little hesitation and the upwards glance spoke volumes, and Bernie’s assertion didn’t ring true even to her own ears.

***

It had been a very pleasant surprise to find Robbie on AAU, even if he was looking for the perpetrators of the Great Pound Shop Robbery rather than seeking Serena out for an illicit liaison - though they managed a little of that as well. Although it seemed like a slightly ignominious way to finish his police career before his retirement, at least it was nothing dangerous or traumatic, and inevitably their conversation turned to the impending change to their relationship.

“You’ve heard from the estate agent?” she asked him.

“Yep - I’ve instructed them to accept the offer. There’s no chain, so I could be out by the end of the month - and into yours.” 

“It’s slightly terrifying!” Serena admitted, but she was excited. “It’s a big step, isn't it? You’re quite sure it’s what you want?”

Robbie was incredulous. “A place of our own just you and me, no one to answer to, doing what we want, whenever we want to, with no one to answer to…”

Looking into his eyes, Serena murmured, “Sounds heavenly,” and anything else she might have had to say on the matter was lost in a kiss.

A little while later, she found that Robbie had left a brochure for a property on her desk: photos and particulars of a _Rosebush Cottage_ , which looked as twee as a shortbread tin. 

“Not thinking of moving, are you?” Fletch had asked.

“Well, Robbie’s going to move into mine. I don’t know why he’s looking at things like this - I’m hardly ready to hang up my stethoscope and move to Midsomer Snoring!” She wasn't sure why she was so miffed at Robbie, but really, did he need to start thinking about moving on before he’d even moved in? She dropped the brochure in the nearest recycling bin.

***

The day had started out so well, Serena thought ruefully, but boy, had it gone downhill since. She had ignored Jason’s innumerable phone calls throughout the morning, only to discover that he had been desperate to get hold of her because his girlfriend - _girlfriend?_ First she’d heard of it! - had hurt her leg running away from a shop they had been stealing from, “like Robin Hood,” he had explained without guile. And once he knew that the police were at the hospital and wanted to question him, he had simply bolted.

Once Serena had tracked Jason down at Alan’s empty house and persuaded him to come back to the hospital to sort everything out, she looked on with pride as Jason told Lola that he knew she was a liar, he was moving in with his Auntie Serena, and that he would not be seeing her again.

The warmth she felt at seeing Jason stand up to his coercive girlfriend was punctured by Robbie’s boorish attitude to Jason. He evidently had no notion of how big and important a step this defiant stance was for Jason, and his impatience irked Serena. 

Jason was annoyed, too. “Don’t treat me like a child,” he requested calmly but firmly.

“Stop behaving like one, then,” Robbie returned, his exasperation clear. Serena frowned at him, and took Jason’s elbow.

It didn’t take long to establish that there was no case for Jason to answer, and despite Lola’s pitiful assertions that Jason was the best boyfriend she had ever had, Serena found she couldn’t feel a great deal of sympathy for her. 

As the dust settled and Lola was treated under the watchful eye of a PC, Robbie turned to Serena, a troubled look on his face.

“He said something about moving in with you?”

Living with Serena’s nephew, with all his demands and particular needs, had never been part of Robbie’s plan for his retirement. Serena was determined that she would not plead with him, and besides, seeing the way he had behaved with Jason today hardly filled her with confidence that the three of them could live harmoniously together, and she told him as much. 

“Unless you’re a hundred per cent sure that you want us both in your life?” 

She left a pause long enough to play a concerto in, and eventually Robbie’s squirming became too uncomfortable even for him to endure.

“Maybe you’re right, no need to rush into things… I’ll call you.”

She had smothered a sob as she had asked Jason to wait a moment, and she had watched Robbie walk away with sadness and a little self pity, but without regret.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are shocks and humiliation for Bernie wherever she turns, and with Dominic's help she makes a decision about how she wants to live her life. Meanwhile, Donna keeps Serena busy as they start work refurbishing the flat - it’s a bigger clean up job than they had hoped for, but Donna is made of stern stuff.

Bernie couldn't believe her eyes. Alex Dawson, here in Holby - here, in her own hospital. This couldn’t be happening. Although it was only short weeks in the past, already her army life, the IED and its aftermath already seemed a lifetime ago, and the stark incongruity of seeing Alex in Holby scrubs was like being awoken with a bucket of cold water. She had put all of this behind her: pushed it beyond the back of her mind and rolled a heavy stone in front of it. 

She didn't know whether the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was fear or re-awakening desire: the overwhelming attraction she had felt for Alex pushing up against the barriers she had placed around it. But she couldn’t allow it to resurface, not now. She had given up her career for this new life in Holby, with Marcus, with the children, and she could not allow herself to stray again, not even for Alex. She had requested a different anaesthetist, but Ric had been quietly furious with her, and she and Alex had worked together in awkward silence.

But later, after the bruising surgery they had shared, only to lose the patient, Bernie found her defences crumbling, and she reached for Alex, only to stagger from the room in blind panic as she saw Dominic’s eyes take in the scene.

He had found her later, sitting outside on a bench.

“Denial is a dangerous thing,” she had conceded. “I’m not ashamed of who I am,” - she was calm, quiet, sad but genuine - “but of the hurt I've caused.”

She had told Dominic everything: that she and Alex had been lovers - and then the IED had hit and she had been blown back to reality.

“So Marcus doesn’t…?”

“No, he doesn’t have a clue - even though all I've done since I got back is think of her, and how wonderful life would be if only I was brave enough.”

 _It gets better_ , he had told her, and she had believed him.

But the day had not really got better for her. She had gone to find Alex, to tell her she was leaving Marcus, that they could be together now, but Alex had left anyway.

***

Bernie let herself into the house quietly, feeling almost as though she were breaking into a home that was not her own. Seeing it afresh after the turmoil of meeting - and parting - with Alex, it seemed more alien than ever. The coats and shoes lined up in the hallway that she knew belonged to her husband and children, but which she had never seen them wear; the photographs hanging in the living room of two grown up young people she really only knew as children: of Marcus and Cameron grinning at a rugby match; Charlotte in a long dress, laughing with her friends at a school formal - and of herself, in uniform and looking blankly at the camera in an official portrait that was several years old.

Although she knew the house was empty, she trod carefully and silently, as though she were afraid she might awaken old ghosts. She felt a little as though she were dreaming. The door to Charlotte’s room stood open, but she recognised almost nothing within. Just a couple of soft toys sat on top of the wardrobe were familiar: Charlotte's much-loved teddy bear relegated to a dusty perch. Although he was here for the weekend, Cameron had not been living at home for some time now, and his bedroom was as neat and clean as her own barracks had been, his books stacked on the shelf, trophies from school displayed to an empty room.

She stood in the doorway to the room she shared with Marcus, that dreamlike sense of dissociation still clouding her perception. The bed had been made and the sheets were as smooth as a newly ironed table cloth, the hospital corners as sharp as any she had seen at work. Had she done that this morning? She couldn't remember. It would certainly pass a barrack room inspection, as would the tidy nightstands with just a photo of the children either side, and the book each of them was reading at present. She looked at it blankly: she couldn't remember a thing about the plot or the characters.

Bernie walked to the built in wardrobe still in that odd fugue state, pulled down a suitcase from the top shelf, and started to pack her clothes.

***

Serena answered the ring at the door with a bucket of cleaning supplies in her hand. 

“Hello! You're bang on time. Shall we go straight round, or would you like a coffee first?”

Donna shook her head and held up a flask. “I’ve brought rations for us both - black coffee in here, and a few sandwiches for later if you like. Let’s go and see what we’re working with and crack on with it!”

Serena led her back down the path and round the corner to another gate. There were several bulging black bin liners piled up against the wheelie bin on the pavement, and Serena tutted at them. “The bin men won’t collect extra bags - we’ll have to see if we can stash them in other people’s bins before they come. Look at the state of it - half of this could have been recycled!”

Donna wrinkled her nose. “I don’t fancy going through it, though. Doesn’t look as though your Mr Jordan was the cleanest of people. Half of this looks like dirty clothes - do you think he didn’t know how to use the washing machine?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve no intention of sorting through it. I did that once at medical school, cleared up after a housemate who scarpered. She hadn’t left her keys behind, and we didn’t want to pay for a new lock so we went through her bin bags to try and find the keys - and that’s how we discovered she’d been working as a lap dancer. All her ‘exotic’ outfits were in the rubbish, along with other… tools of her trade.” She shuddered. “I’m not risking that again!”

She pushed the gate open and strode up to the door. Setting down the bucket, she unlocked the door and opened it, only to step back reeling from the stale odour. “Good lord, I don’t think he knew how to open windows, either. It’s going to need a really good airing - and I think there must be food waste in here still from the smell. Ugh. My mother would be rolling in her grave if she had one. Her lovely little flat!”

Taking the bucket up as though it were shield, she marched into battle, Donna at her back. They stepped through the glazed porch and through the front door proper straight into the living room. Serena stopped and gazed around in horror.

“My god, the state of it! Did he _live_ like this, do you think, or has he gone out of his way to leave it looking so horrible?”

The walls had been painted a lurid electric blue - quite against the tenancy agreement - and not painted well, either. Dirty marks along the wall reminded Serena of the ring left in the bath after a hard day’s gardening, and oil stains on the floor confirmed that Mr Jordan had kept his bike in the living room, scuffing the handlebars along the wall. The furniture she had left in the flat after Adrienne’s death was very much the worse for wear, the sofa sagging terribly, and the stuffing spilling out of the arms as though someone had picked at it repeatedly. The carpet in front of the sofa bore an oily, bright yellow stain - curry, or she missed her guess - and a dark, shiny triangle in the corner showed where an iron had been placed sole plate down directly onto the carpet.

The plain softwood dining table was chipped, and stained with wine, ink and scorch marks, and who knew what foodstuffs. One of the dining chairs was missing a leg, and the back of the other hung precariously to one side. Nails in the wall showed where Mr Jordan had hung pictures, and a couple of holes in the plaster suggested that he had been rather too enthusiastic with the hammer. Glancing at Donna with a dark look, Serena led the way through to a small hallway - _the anteroom_ , Adrienne had grandly called it - leading to the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The light pouring in from the lantern window above them showed the sorry state of the woodwork, the kitchen door handle lying on the floor along with its screws, and numerous gouges taken out of the plasterboard at varying heights.

Bracing herself, Serena pushed the kitchen door open with her toe, and swallowed against the rising of her gorge. She held her breath and marched over to the window, throwing it wide open to let the fresh morning air in.

“Come on, let’s get every window in the place open. You do the bedroom, I’ll do the bathroom,” she said briskly. Forewarned, she held her breath and entered the bathroom, opening the window and beating a hasty retreat. She found Donna in the bedroom, struggling to open one of the windows which seemed to have been painted shut with the hideous aubergine gloss paint that had been poorly applied to all the woodwork in this room.

“I needn’t have worried about finding the money for his deposit,” Serena said grimly. “He’ll be lucky if he sees a penny of it!” Pushing experimentally against the window frame, she tutted. “This is going to need a Stanley knife to open it. Why on earth did he paint it while it was shut? Why did he paint it at all, come to that? I was very clear that he should have referred all the maintenance work to the agency. This is going to be a bit of a mammoth task, I’m afraid.”

Donna squared her shoulders. “Bin bags is what we need first. Let’s get everything out of here - take it all straight to the tip, don’t wait for the bins to be emptied. I think most of the furniture will need to go as well - I don’t think any of it’s worth selling or even passing on to charity, do you?”

Serena sighed. “Well, none of it was new, but it seems such a shame to just throw it away. But you’re right. It all needs to go - the curtains too,” she added, looking at the greasy roller blind, and gesturing back at the bedroom where the dirty curtains hung drunkenly from the wonky rail. “Mum had everything so neat and tidy here - it’s a little bit heartbreaking to see it like this. Still,” she said pulling herself up to her full height, “It won’t do to get all maudlin over it. At least it really doesn’t feel like her place anymore. Look, Donna, this is much worse than I thought it would be. I can’t ask you to help me clean it up - I’ll get someone in to do it and then we can think about how to make it look smart again.”

“Come off it, Serena - we see worse than this on the ward every day. If I can’t stomach cleaning this, then I’ve no business going anywhere near a suppurating leg ulcer or a perforated bowel, now, have I?” And without waiting for agreement or argument, she picked up a roll of bin liners from Serna’s bucket, shook it out like a great banner and tore a few off the roll. She started on the top wall cupboards, throwing half empty packets of solidified gravy granules and instant custard into the first bag. 

Serena stood watching her open mouthed for a beat or two, then gave a little shake of her head, then shook herself out of it and said,”Right! I’ll start on the bathroom, then!”

Glad of her elbow length rubber gloves, she started by pulling down the tatty shower curtain, which she stuffed straight into a bin liner along with several scrappy bars of soap and a towel which could have stood up by itself. Opening another bag to take recyclables, she threw various bottles and tubs into it, wondering what sort of young man could take so much trouble over his appearance, yet so little over his living space. 

An hour or so later found them sitting on the garden bench in the little courtyard garden, sharing Donna’s flask of coffee and a packet of biscuits.

“I’m going to have to gut it, aren’t I?” Serena asked rhetorically. “I don’t think new doors on the kitchen units are going to cut it, somehow. I doubt they’d survive having the old doors taken off, even. It’s probably only the grease holding them together.”

“I think you’re right, I'm afraid,” Donna agreed. She took a heavy measuring tape from her belt where it had been clipped, drew out the tape a foot or so and let it ping back with a snap. Serena wasn’t sure why that should set her off into uncontrollable giggles but it did, and eventually Donna wiped the tears of laugher from her own eyes and stood up. “Right then, Missus - come and hold the end of this for me and we’ll draw a little plan of the place - and after that, I think a good wash and retreat to the drawing board, yes?”

***

Donna had her faults, Serena mused: she was opinionated and outspoken, she often jumped to the wrong conclusion and didn’t always listen to opposing views, but goodness, she wasn’t afraid of hard work. Most nurses weren’t, she knew that, but Donna had a streak of determination that chimed with Serena’s own, and by lunchtime, the kitchen cupboards lay outside ready for to be transported to the tip.

As they sat on the bench outside picking away at the picnic lunch Donna had brought along, Serena started to sketch out a floor plan from Donna’s measurements. Now that they had cleared it, it actually felt quite airy, partly because of the lantern window in the middle, and partly because the extra wide doors Serena had insisted be installed in case Adrienne became dependent on a wheelchair. That had never come to pass, but she rather liked the wide doorways, and she had certainly made it easier to move the furniture out.

Using coloured highlighters, they marked out areas which needed particular attention, and those which simply needed a coat of paint or two. Not surprisingly, it was the kitchen and bathroom which would require the most significant outlay, and the flooring would need replacing throughout. It felt daunting, even overwhelming to Serena, but Donna was optimistic.

“So it needs painting throughout, obviously - you and I should be able to do that between us, unless you think Jason would like to help?”

Serena’s eyes widened slightly. “I don’t think so. In mean, I’m sure he’d make an excellent job of it - he’s got such a good eye for detail - but it would take forever - and I’m not sure he’d enjoy the messiness of it. No, I’ll do the donkey work, I think. So once I’ve picked colours, I can crack on with that. It’s the other stuff that worries me - I think we’re going to need to look at re-tiling the bathroom, and the kitchen’s going to need gutting completely! I just can’t see how I’m going to afford any of it!”

But Donna was quick to sooth her. “You said you’ve got the cash ready for his deposit, yes? Well, realistically, how much of it is he going to get back? We’ve already spent three hours each clearing his rubbish away and making it half decent, and he’s trashed the living room completely. So you’ve got cash in hand. And I’ve got a few contacts who can provide at least the materials at a knock down price - probably free, if I lean on them - and Billy’s always happy to be paid in kind - not that kind!” she added hastily at Serena’s startled glance. “If you can cook him a slap up meal or give his daughter a bit of science tutoring, I bet he’d fall at your feet.”

“Hmm. I have to admit I’m not the world’s greatest cook, but tutoring? That’s a distinct possibility,” Serena mused.

***

Bernie had rather been enjoying her guest appearance on AAU: it was good to finally get a chance to work with Serena, and she silently thanked Mr di Lucca for the opportunity, courtesy of his stomach bug. Serena had admired her in her AAU scrubs, telling her the colour suited her, and she had been unaccountably pleased with the compliment.

But her pleasure in the deployment was brought to an abrupt end when a stumpy little chap in coke bottle glasses had thrust a buff envelope into her hands, peremptorily serving her with divorce papers, right there on the ward in front of Serena and their colleagues.

“Are you for real? You bring this to my place of work?”

She was seething, but it only made matters worse, as the scruffy little charmer pointed out that as she was currently of no fixed abode, he had had little choice. Serena had taken pity on her and whisked her away from the ward for a cup of something hot, and they traded divorce tales.

Glad of the sympathetic ear, Bernie revealed that she had splashed out on a hotel for the time being, but as she explained, that probably wouldn't be for very long, as Marcus had frozen their joint assets.

“Go for his golf clubs - hit him where it hurts!” Serena advised, with a vindictiveness borne of her own acrimonious separation from Edward, but although she smiled at the thought, Bernie couldn't help but feel some discomfort at Serena’s easy comradeship. After all, Bernie could hardly play the part of the wronged woman with any conviction. For now, though, the understanding that Serena offered was a relief from the humiliation she had faced on the ward, and she was glad of this budding friendship - more than glad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry to tell you that the lap dancing lodger, the curried carpet and the aubergine gloss paint are all incidents taken from my former life as a landlady. I discovered, after she left, that the lap dancer used to practice her routines on my other lodger, who sat frozen in horror throughout and didn’t know how to tell me what was going on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie’s relations with both Marcus and Serena are damaged when a spiteful patient repeats the gossip she has heard on the ward, and it becomes clear to her that she is going to find a more permanent home than the hotel room she has been staying in. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Donna makes good on her promise to pimp Serena’s crib, and together they make it ready to receive a new tenant.

Only a few days later, Bernie was certain that her friendship with Serena was already a thing of the past. She had been wrong footed to find Marcus in theatre - the theatre she had booked for herself, no less - and had fired off a hasty email to Dominic, warning him to keep what he knew about her and Alex to himself. All too hasty, as it transpired, and the email ended up in the inbox of the notorious hospital gossip monger Dominic _Copeman_ , and before she could get her bearings with Marcus, it was evident that word had spread throughout the hospital.

Worst of all, the young patient she was treating, furious at being found out to be the aggressor, not the victim of a vicious career ending attack, spat the whole ugly story out right there on the ward. Serena, coming to offer help with the young woman, arrived just in time to hear the _coup de grace_. 

”Hypocrite! I heard them talking about how you cheated on your husband with a woman!”

The sudden silence on the ward, the feeling of so many pairs of eyes trained on her in malicious curiosity, the rushing in her ears - all these, Bernie could cope with, but the sight of Serena’s face as it fell and froze, that was something quite different. It felt as though her stomach had dropped through the floor, and her hands felt suddenly cold and clammy. 

“Thank you very much, Dr Copeland,” she eventually growled, and walked away, only to be followed a few moments later by Dominic himself, and although she let fly her barely controlled fury, he interrupted her diatribe and called her back to her life-wrecking patient, who had collapsed.

Serena was cold and formal with her as she arranged for Marcus to be present in theatre. From the moment he entered, it was clear that Marcus had heard the gossip before she had had a chance to speak to him. Afterwards, she was desperate to leave theatre, but dragged herself back to face the music, and it was an ugly tune. She stood, arms folded tightly across her stomach as she took the worst he had to offer, and didn’t interrupt him, knowing she deserved every word of it. It was only when she spoke up at last that Marcus dropped any pretence to listen to her, to understand, and he staked his claim on the moral high ground, on their children. He left with a promise that there would be no more amicable discussion, and though his parting shot that she would be hearing from his lawyer was hackneyed, she knew it was not an empty threat.

And Serena, hurt at Bernie’s lack of reciprocal candour, rather than join her for the drink and chat she was so desperate to share with her, suggested that maybe they should both leave it at home in the future. And that was where they both took it that evening - home.

Home for Bernie, just at the moment, was a decent hotel on the waterfront, but now that Marcus knew the truth and had taken it so badly, she was certain that she would need to live as inexpensively as possible, for he had seemed utterly determined to drag her through hell. Sitting on the edge of her hotel bed, she scrolled through her contacts, her finger hovering over first one name, then another. Eventually she made a decision, and a call.

“Mac? It’s Wolfey here. Is your sofa free for a bit?”

***

With mere days left until Serena would be left without rent, Donna’s friends had come good. With the help of Serena’s tutoring, Billie Junior had leapt several grades in General Science, and thanks to Billy Senior’s resourcefulness (and contacts that Serena thought it best not to enquire about too closely), Serena had a beautifully tiled bathroom, a herringbone parquet floor in the living room that would have fooled an antiques expert, and a sleek, minimalist kitchen, with appliances that no-one could have guessed were showroom seconds. As Donna had predicted, Billy had kept costs down by using up part consignments of materials left over from other jobs: the black slate flooring in the bathroom and kitchen had been left over from a swanky apartment makeover in Wyvern Grange; the oiled oak kitchen worktop from a bar refurbishment in one of the newly gentrified areas of town, and the herringbone floor may have been too outdated for the Holby City Academy, which had replaced its school hall with hard-wearing industrial vinyl, but relaid in what had once been Adrienne’s living room, it polished up beautifully.

Billy had also laid quarry tiles in the enclosed porch, and grained plywood in the bedroom, which Serena had been sceptical about, but which now gleamed with a generous application of a rich, dark wood stain and coat or two of varnish. He had advised that it might need little attention after Serena had decorated, but left her a great bundle of heavy dust sheets to protect the floors while she painted the walls.

On a Saturday morning towards the end of May, Donna turned up at the flat to find Serena already hard at work. She had sanded down all the woodwork ready for a coat of gloss, and had already completed the door frames and skirting boards in the bedroom, bathroom and the little anteroom that linked the other rooms. She explained to Donna that she had decided to get a head start on the glossing the previous day, as it meant they could start on the walls this morning. 

Under her arm, Donna bore several rolls of luxurious wallpaper, all left over from jobs that Billy had been working on over the last couple of weeks. After a little thought and a lot of holding paper up for each other to evaluate, they chose one that looked expensive but elegant, a muted copper pattern threading through a charcoal grey background. This was for the living room, a feature wall behind the shining log burner which Elinor had polished on a brief visit at the weekend. A lighter dove grey matt finish paint would complement the paper beautifully, but there was the woodwork to finish first.

Tasking Donna with the important but somewhat dull job of painting the bathroom walls with a specialist bathroom paint to withstand the damp, Serena set to work on the remaining gloss work in the living room. She was grateful beyond measure for Donna’s help, but she wouldn’t trust anyone beside herself to get this detail right. She had carefully applied masking tape around the edges of the woodwork, and she became happily absorbed in her work, and Donna finished the bathroom at around the same time as Serena laid her final brushstroke along the skirting board by the door.

They inspected each other's work with murmurs of approval. The same monochrome palette would tie in the kitchen to the overall feel of the flat as they had planned it, with one wall featuring the same dark grey that would eventually hang behind the log burner, and copper fittings would highlight it. For now, the ceiling and the other three walls took their coat of white, and the room was quickly transformed from a drab little kitchenette with greasy surfaces and food spattered walls, to a gleaming white space that felt twice the size of its previous incarnation.

“Isn’t this the most satisfying thing to do?” Donna beamed at Serena as she finished rollering the last square foot of the anteroom.

“Well, short of a slap-up job on an abdominal aortic aneurysm, yes, I’d say it is! What a difference a bit of paint makes. And you were quite right about the colour scheme going all the way through - I can’t wait to get this paper up and see the full effect.”

That would wait until after the second coat, however, and that in turn would need to wait until after lunch. Serena lead the way round he corner to her own house where they made a hearty lunch of soup and a baked potato, and turned to the mood boards Serena had put together one last time. She still hadn’t quite decided on the decor for the bedroom.

“It’s so hard without knowing whose room it’s going to be,” she explained. “It feels as though the place needs a bit of colour somewhere, and I don’t think I want any more grey, however nice it’s going to look everywhere else.”

“It’s tricky, isn't it?” Donna agreed. “You want to keep it neutral but not boring. I love the grey we’ve got everywhere, and we’ll jazz it up with some colourful curtains and cushions, but maybe you’re right - maybe a more colourful feature wall in the bedroom would be good. Let’s have another look at the paint charts, see if anything jumps out at us. We sort of stopped thinking about colours once we’d picked the grey and copper theme, didn’t we?”

By lunchtime the following day, the bedroom was a soft sage green, and they had started to move the furniture from Billy’s lock-up into place. Serena had opted to keep things reasonably minimalist and wasn’t providing a great deal of furniture beyond the bare essentials, but she had gone to some trouble to find just the right pieces, and she was pleased with her finds. A visit to an outlet store on the edge of Holby had yielded a Shaker style bed frame with matching nightstands and wardrobe at a knockdown price, and a morning spent at a house clearance auction had seen her return with a gorgeous tan leather sofa and armchair. Donna had shown her how to bring up the soft grain of the leather with some specially formulated cream and a soft cloth, and she was delighted with the result.

In fact, she was thrilled with the way the whole apartment had turned out, and as she adjusted the final cushion, she gave a little shiver, and impulsively hugged her interior designer and decorator.

“Donna, I can’t thank you enough. Who would think that’s Mum’s modest little pad could look so swanky? I wouldn’t mind living here myself!”

Laughing, Donna gave her a squeeze in return. “We’ve done a bang up job, I’d say! Now, about that extra weekend off you promised me…”

“Already signed off, don’t you worry. And I’ve got a little something for you to help it go with a swing - but let me just take some photos first.”

Serena took photos of every room form several different angles, and threw in some arty shots of her favourite features to boot, and back in her own kitchen, they selected the best ones to send to the agent. Serena made an appropriate fuss of Donna, and presented her with a hamper full of delicious things to treat herself on her upcoming weekend away with her girls, including a couple of DVDs for the girls to watch, and a bottle of something _very_ nice for Donna to relax with.

She completed the last couple of forms Isabelle Firman had sent her, and attached them to an email along with the photos, and hit the send button with a deep sigh of relief.

“There. They’ll pick the email up tomorrow morning and hopefully get the ad out the same day - then we just wait for it to be snapped up!”

***

Kerry McNamara had come to Bernie’s aid, just as she knew she would. She had been a dependable comrade out in Iraq, and she was a dependable friend now. Her willingness to help, alas, was not matched by her ability to provide accommodation to the standard of the Holby Marriott, where Bernie had been staying since she left the family home. Wincing as she stretched her back, Bernie made a note to herself to buy Mac a new sofa bed once she had got herself back on her feet and the dust had settled. 

The toddlers she remembered from the photos in Mac’s wallet were teenagers now, two girls and a boy, and while they were polite and reasonably friendly to her, they were not able to hide their puzzlement at her presence - a grown woman, sleeping on their sofa and living out of a backpack. Already feeling awkward about taking up space in their home, Bernie had forgotten just what sharing a bathroom with teenagers was like. After a few nights, she thanked Mac profusely, and moved on to the only other place she could think of where she could sleep, eat and crash out without drawing under attention to herself. She was on call for the next couple of nights anyway, she reasoned - might as well make use of the facilities.

Those facilities did not include an iron, and Bernie had not had time to go to the laundrette over the course of the week, and turning up in yesterday’s clothes had drawn barbed comments from Serena about Bernie’s “latest conquest,” and as painful as it was to receive this treatment from someone she had thought of as a good friend, it provided the spur she needed to look for somewhere at least a little more permanent.

She flipped up the screen of her laptop, and searched for letting agencies in Holby.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie begins house hunting in earnest, but is thwarted at every turn by customers quicker off the mark, and horrified at the properties that no-one else seems to want. She decides a stakeout is the only answer, and determines to take the very next property that the agency makes available.

_Homes From Home: it’s where your heart is!_ declared the banner across the top of the web page. Bernie scrolled through thumbnail after thumbnail of houses and flats that looked as though they had never been home to anyone: just temporary residences on the road from nowhere to somewhere else. She swiped through a few screens, then shook her head. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She scrolled back up to the top and looked at the filters, and made a few adjustments.

“Own separate entrance… garden or outside space… proximity to postcode…” She selected her minimum and maximum rent bracket, and hovered over the “smoking permitted” option, leaving it unchecked. She had specified that she wanted a bit of outdoor space, and that would do.

The page reloaded, and Bernie spent a more fruitful twenty minutes or so looking more closely at the photos and descriptions of flats and maisonettes within a reasonable distance of the hospital. She started making a shortlist, growing a little despondent. Some looked tiny, and although she didn’t need anything palatial, she at least wanted to be able to stretch her arms without hitting both opposite walls. Others were larger but in a hideous state of repair, and there were one or two that she thought must have been posted as a joke: why would anyone want to view a house that had offensive graffiti daubed across the front door, or which clearly had an infestation of rats, judging by the little piles of droppings visible in the picture of the kitchen?

She narrowed it down to four properties and called the number at the top of the screen.

***

By the time she met Sam from the agency at the first property, the most promising flat had already been snapped up by another customer.

“Gazumped before I’ve even started! That’s not the most promising start, is it?” Bernie joked dolefully. It had been such a long time since she had needed to go house hunting that she had forgotten what a cut-throat business it was. She remembered her third year at medical school, when she and a friend had all but camped out at the letting agent’s office to be in with a chance of seeing new listings before anyone else.

The first was nicely presented, and Bernie was on the verge of accepting it when a sudden screeching pierced the party wall. “It’s not fair, you never let me do _anything!_ ” Berne rolled her eyes - she remembered that phase well enough from Charlotte’s early teens, and clearly, some other parent was going through the same difficult stage with their own teenager. A moment later, she felt as much as heard a bedroom door slam, and then the floorboards started vibrating to the rhythm of - what was that? Did they still call it death metal these days?

The next flat she saw was above a takeaway, and from the moment Sam unlocked the door, she was aware of nothing but the smell of stale chip fat.

”You didn’t mention _that_ in the advert. You ought to offer a rent rebate to offset the cost of the Febreze you’d need to tolerate this.” She relented a little and spoke more kindly. “Look - I’m a doctor: I spend my day looking after sick people - one whiff of my hair and they’d be redecorating the floor with their breakfast. I don’t think so. Let’s move on to the next one, shall we?”

And the third… Bernie didn't know how to begin to describe the final property. It certainly didn't bear much relation to the optimistic write-up from the agency’s website. As the agent started to fit the key in the lock, the door swung open, revealing a petite figure dressed head to toe in shades of pink, and for a moment, Bernie thought it was a child. It took her a moment to reconcile the greying hair (albeit scraped back in a pink pony tail scrunchie) and weathered complexion with the girlish dress, the large purple plastic-framed glasses and the t-bar sandals, with little frilly ankle socks ruffled around the strap.

“Miss Reid!” Sam exclaimed, looking suddenly pale in the early evening light. “I understood the property would be empty…?”

“I know you said I didn’t need to be here, but I do like to meet my boys and girls in person. Now, who have we got here?” She peered at Bernie over the top of her glasses. “Oh, goody - it’s a little girl! The girlies always take such good care of my little _pied a terre_ ,” she trilled.

Major Berenice Wolfe, late of the RAMC, decorated several times over for service and gallantry, maintained a stiff upper lip at being addressed as a little girl, with just the twitch of a muscle betraying her inner seething.

“Now, my dear, you mustn’t mind me - just pretend I’m not here! Say whatever you like - I won’t be a jot offended!”

Bernie’s gallantry extended even to this dire situation. Not a word passed her lips about the floral wallpaper with its old fashioned border and dado rail; about the flouncy curtains with their ruffled pelmet, or even about the hideously overstuffed three piece suite, which looked as though it would be extremely uncomfortable to sit on - assuming you managed to find it underneath all the cushions. Indeed, the overpowering scent of _pot pourri_ , heaped generously in cut crystal bowls in every room, made Bernie want to hold her breath altogether, let alone speak.

Pretending Miss Reid wasn’t there was quite impossible, as she flitted ahead of Bernie and Sam, twitching the curtains into place, straightening doilies on the ornate sideboard, and polishing invisible smears off the bathroom mirror, all the while twittering about how she knew they would be the _very bestest of friends_.

“How soon will you be moving in ? I can give you the keys right away!” Miss Reid beamed as she fished a set of keys out of her pocket, complete with a unicorn key ring.

Bernie blanched, but kept her head.

“I’d want to redecorate: would that be a problem?”

Miss Reid laughed, a tinkling little giggle that set Bernie’s teeth on edge. “No need, silly! It’s just been refitted from top to tail - I did it myself! It’s lovely, isn’t it? I even made the toilet roll covers myself! Did you notice them? Aren’t they darling?”

Bernie had indeed noticed them. Nodding and smiling and making all the right noises, Bernie jerked her head towards the door, and Sam took the hint.

“Well, thank you for showing us round, Miss Reid, we’ll be in touch.”

Bernie smiled weakly and nodded. “One or two more to see still - must give them all a fair chance, eh?”

Outside, Bernie leaned back agains the wall and tipped her head back, taking a great gulp of non-rose scented air. With a great huff, she expelled it, and looked at the agent despondently.

“Or I could just sleep in my car, I suppose.”

***

Over the following week, Bernie checked the listings religiously, and found a depressing pattern forming. While there were new properties added every day, anything half decent was snapped up within hours of posting, and every property she managed to view had been left vacant for very good reason. Which would be worse, she pondered - chip fat or doilies?

By the Monday morning, she was at her rope’s end. She really couldn’t impose on Mac’s hospitality any more, and she was done with living out of a backpack. Remembering again how she had resorted to staking out the letting agency as a student, she decided to bypass the online shop window and see if there were any properties waiting to be posted. She could play dirty if she needed to.

When Sam arrived at the office at quarter to nine, it was to find Bernie leaning against the door.

“Ms Wolfe! We’re not open until nine I'm afraid. There’s a coffee shop over the road if you wanted to wait?”

It was not Ms Wolfe this morning, but the Major.

“I won’t be waiting, thanks Sam. I just need to look through your new properties before they go online.” And she pushed open the door that he had just unlocked and strode confidently into the office.

Bernie Wolfe may have been something of an emotional and personal disaster zone, but Ms Wolfe the surgeon was a maverick, and Major Wolfe expected to give orders and see them obeyed without hesitation. Sam hovered in the doorway, unsure of what to do with this transformed client, who only a few days ago had seemed defeated and fragile. He was relieved to see a silver Seat Leon pull up outside the shop front, and as his boss stepped out, he gave her an appealing look and an apologetic half shrug.

“Everything all right, Sam?” she asked, looking with curiosity at the tall blonde figure inside the office.

“Oh - it’s one of my clients - Ms Wolfe. She’s a bit frustrated by her search for a flat, and she wanted to see if there was anything new this morning…” He tailed off helplessly, and his employer let him off the hook as she patted his shoulder and entered the office.

“Hello there, Ms Wolfe, I’m afraid we’re not open just yet, but if you'd like to take a seat I can be with you very shortly.”

“Thank, you, Ms...?”

“Firman. Isabelle Firman.” She held her hand out and Bernie grasped it firmly.

“Ms Firman. Bernie Wolfe. I’m actually hoping I might be able to save you a little work this morning. I’m after a furnished flat within easy distance of Holby City Hospital: without a shared entrance; no party walls; not above a commercial property. Plain or neutral decor, or permission to redecorate. A garden would be good, but not essential.” Suddenly remembering Miss Reid with a shudder, she added, “And where there will be no contact with the owner - I’d want to do everything via the agency. Now, if you’ve had anything matching that description come in over the weekend, you needn’t bother with the rigmarole of posting it online - I’ll take it sight unseen and save you the task.”

Isabelle stifled a laugh. She could see how poor Sam had allowed himself to be steam rolled by this force of nature.

“Well, it’s unorthodox, but I can see you’ve got a very clear idea of what you’re looking for, so let’s see if we can meet your criteria. Just give me a few minutes to log in.”

Seeing that she had won the battle, or rather, found a comrade prepared to help her fight it, Bernie leaned against the spiral staircase next to Isabelle’s desk, tracing the ironwork with a finger. Quite unfazed by her presence, Isabelle logged on and sorted through the usual junk mail, discarding most of what had appeared in her inbox over the weekend. She moved a couple of emails into folders, and then came one that caught her eye.

“We might have something here… hold on a moment. Let me just have a look at the photos - it’s been refurbished and I haven’t seen it yet.”

She clicked through a few screens, her smile growing wider, then turned the screen round so Bernie could see it.

“Look. A detached executive flat, fully refurbished throughout. You’d have your own entrance, a little yard with a garden bench and a few pots, look - and the decor - is that neutral enough for your tastes?”

Bernie flicked through the photos, hope rising in her chest.

“It looks perfect - what’s the catch?”

Isabelle turned the screen back so that Bernie wouldn’t see any personal data from the owner, and scanned quickly though the accompanying form.

“There's isn’t one, I don’t think. The owner has specified no direct contact as well, so you’d be on the same page as far as that’s concerned. The only thing you might find a catch is the price: it’s towards the higher end of our rentals.”

She named the monthly rental fee, and Bernie considered for the merest moment before holding out her hand to shake on the deal. It was rather higher than she had been hoping for, but it really did look ideal - and the hands-off approach was worth the extra, as far as she was concerned. She really didn’t want to be the _very bestest of friends_ with her landlady, thank you very much.

***

Serena was kicking herself for parking her car round the corner the previous evening. She had got in so late that she just couldn’t be bothered to reverse up the drive and into her garage, but she regretted it now as she dashed from her front door, round the corner through the rain and ducked into her little car. As she sorted herself out and buckled up, she saw a rented van pull up outside the flat. A moment later, someone stepped out, a hood pulled up round their face and an umbrella held low. They scurried to the back of the van and opened up, and as they took out a stack of cardboard boxes so high that they couldn't possibly see where they were going, Serena realised that she was watching her new tenant move in.

She craned her neck to get a better look, but as the figure dashed back down the path, a bus trundled by, and by the time it had passed, they were carrying a large picture frame which obscured their face. _Her_ face, Serena thought, though she couldn’t be sure. Lots of young men wore the _tightest_ trousers these days, despite how very uncomfortable it must be, she thought. But although the new tenant had very slim hips, there was something about the way they held themselves that made her think that the skintight jeans were hugging a woman’s form.

She shook herself. What did it matter? She had made it clear that she wanted no contact with whoever it was, and she was wasting time with this speculation. She turned the key in the ignition, set the windscreen wipers going, and pulled away from the kerb.

Bernie dodged back through the rain one last time to lock the van. She had hired it for a couple of days in case she needed to go and get hold of any more furniture, but it didn’t look as though that would be necessary - from what she had seen as she moved her belongings in, the flat was fully furnished.

She paused on the doorstep. Since arriving at the flat, Bernie had felt an odd sense of being watched, and she turned just in time to see tail lights receding through the rain, which was so heavy now that she couldn’t see what colour the car was, let alone its make or model. She shook the rainwater from her eyes and pushed her dripping fringe back. Whoever it was had gone now, and she was too wet, cold and miserable to worry about it. Perhaps she had imagined it, anyway.

She turned again and shut the porch door behind her. The living room was full of boxes and bags: not a great deal to show for fifty years, but all she needed. And there was no-one to tell her that certain items were non-regulation: no husband to complain that their tastes were not the same. There was no-one to tell her how to live her life any more. In a flat she was seeing for the first time, surrounded by packing boxes, Bernie felt for the first time in her adult life that she was home.

***

It didn’t take Bernie long to unpack and put her things away. She started by taking a tour of her new home, which she had so far only seen on a screen. Unlike any of the other properties she had viewed, it actually lived up to the letting agent’s description.

She liked the unfussiness of the monochrome colour scheme, the little touches of colour here and there, and as she stepped into the bedroom, she gave a little satisfied sigh. It felt like such a calm space, uncluttered by furniture other than the large double bed, a chest of drawers and two matching nightstands, and a plain wooden wardrobe with clean lines. The soft green colour of the walls and the curtains gave the room something of the feel of a woodland glade, and she knew that she would sleep soundly in this room.

In the little space between the four rooms was a built in cupboard containing cleaning supplies and an ironing board. Next to the cupboard was a storage unit that might have been called a Welsh dresser had it been more ornate. She noted with satisfaction the deep bathtub and separate shower in the bathroom, and the kitchen, while minimalist in style and equipment, was more than adequate for her needs.

She made quick work of unpacking her meagre possessions. Photos of Cameron and Charlotte went not on her nightstand, but on the windowsill in the living room, and an informal group photo of her RAMC unit stood on another. It had been taken in Helmand, at a time in Bernie’s life when she felt perfectly happy, before Alex had been seconded to her unit. She hung a large landscape of the Afghan mountains next to the chimney of the log burner, where she would see it from the sofa. Her few books went on the shelves of the dresser, and her personal papers and a few other essentials went in the cupboard below.

Once everything was in its proper place, Bernie flattened all the boxes and put them outside in the recycling bin. She stowed her bags away in the cupboard, and surveyed her new home. It looked neat, a little impersonal, perhaps, but it suited her perfectly. Making a face at the rain still coursing down the window panes, she lit the log burner and started running a bath. She went to the kitchen to see if she could find a tumbler for her whiskey. The cupboards were bare but for a pair of wine glasses, and a notecard that read in block capitals, “In case you need this before you unpack your glasses!”

Next to the glasses was an expensive looking bottle of Shiraz. That would do nicely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, all too much of this is taken from life, including the sweet but ghastly Miss Reid - a former boss of mine :-(


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie proves to Serena that she really does have her best interests at heart, but the even course of good friendship rarely runs smooth, and an encounter with Cameron on AAU tests the strength of the recent repairs to their relationship.

Bernie had only been in her new place for a few days, but Serena had already noticed that Bernie was looking a bit smarter again - well, that she was at least wearing different clothes day to day. As a tiny concession to their friendship (for true to form, she was still enjoying having a grudge to nurse), she mentioned the freshly pressed blouse that Bernie was wearing - in spite of her current downer on Bernie, she _did_ like that black shirt on her.

Bernie accepted the compliment with surprise, deflecting it in her own bashful way. “Oh, well, I'm in my own place now - I was staying with a friend before, and she’s got three teenagers - it was a bit of a nightmare trying to get through the bathroom in the mornings.”

Forgetting the grudge in an instant, Serena let out a little cry of dismay. “What? Oh, Bernie, why didn’t you say so? How silly - I've _literally_ just let my little flat out - we could have killed two birds with one stone!”

Bernie didn't want to say that Serena had hardly been sympathetic to her plight when she was most in need of support, but she didn’t really need to. Serena caught herself, and shook her head ruefully.

“Ah, never mind - I suppose all’s well that ends well. And if there’s anything more disruptive than workplace romances, it's housemate squabbles - it’s bad enough when Fletch and Raf bring their domestic tiffs to work. Can you imagine if we had that complication as well?”

Bernie could imagine only too well, but decided that discretion was the better part of valour, a quality which she tried to embody. She inclined her head with mock gravity.

“Doesn't bear thinking about, does it? I’m perfectly happy with my new place, anyway. And I rather like the fact that it’s all handled through an agency - I don’t deal with the landlord at all - keeps it nice and personal.”

“Oh, quite,” Serena agreed enthusiastically. “I go for the hands off approach as well. The last thing I want is my tenant knocking on my door at eleven o’clock at night because they’ve broken the washing machine. It’s better all round.”

Bernie smiled at her. “Sounds as though we’ve both had a close shave, then.”

***

Bernie left work that evening to find Serena staring at an empty parking space, broken glass the only indication that her car had ever been there. Ever the gallant major, she offered Serena a lift home as a peace offering to try and continue mending the rift they had suffered, but Serena had already called a taxi, and insisted that Bernie didn’t need to wait with her.

The next day, determined to cheer her up, Bernie found just the thing to brighten Serena’s day, and took delight in Serena’s reaction to the unfortunate man who somehow, between eating a pork pie and drinking a glass of white wine, had managed to wedge a bath tap in a most unfortunate place. Indeed, not only did it cheer her up, but it seemed to put a bit of devilment into Serena, and she challenged Bernie to an arm wrestling match to determine which of them would take the honour of extracting the offending item from an even more offensive place. Crowing over the victory (which Bernie had allowed her), Serena offered sweetly to let Bernie hold her coat in theatre, but in the event it was Bernie’s strength that carried the day. Better than that, though: when Bernie had cautiously brought up the topic of their previous estrangement, Serena had waved it away, looking more ashamed than magnanimous, and things seemed to be settling back on an even keel.

But Bernie was fast discovering that there was no such thing as an even keel with Serena Campbell. Following a brief suspension over the files which had been leaked following the theft of her laptop, Serena had reacted furiously when she found out that Bernie had been brought down to AAU not to help out, but to supervise her - _her_ , Serena Campbell, Deputy CEO. Ignoring Bernie’s protestations that she had stepped in to make sure AAU was looked after by someone who had Serena’s best interests at heart, Serena had stormed off to Hanssen’s office to resign.

She was angrily flinging her possessions into a cardboard box, when she found a brown paper package tied up with string - it appeared that Bernie was more like Maria von Trapp than she thought - and the silly, fun little emergency care package was enough to give her pause. 

“Oh, god. She really _has_ had my back. Open mouth, insert foot. Well done Serena.”

She was tempted to take a quick swig from the hip flask Bernie had filled with shiraz for her, but thought better of it. Instead, she made a quick call to Henrik, and made her way up to his office to eat humble pie. A few minutes later, Bernie stood a good arm’s length away, eyeing her cautiously and hearing what Hanssen had to say. She was amused as she was surprised to hear that apart from nominal rank, Serena grudgingly admitted that they were equals, and it took her a moment to understand that she was being offered joint leadership of AAU. Apparently she had gone from being Public Enemy Number One to being the power behind the throne, all in the space of an hour. 

Teasing Serena later in Albie’s, she promised her that Serena would always be her first port of call. 

“We are equals after all…” she said, a twinkle in her eye.

Serena rolled her eyes. “You're not going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Not on your life!”

By the time they had made it to the bottom of the first bottle, Serena had confessed how difficult she had found the past weeks, she she had felt unable or unwilling to trust Bernie, but she could see now that there was more than one side to the story - many more than one side, in fact.

“And then when I found your little survival kit, I - well, it knocked me for six, rather. It was such a lovely gesture - thank you. I wish I’d opened it sooner - I could have bypassed all that resignation nonsense.”

Topping up her glass, Bernie chuckled. “So all I have to do to avert catastrophe another time is ply you with alcohol? Got it.”

***

Despite their rapprochement, they still found ways to butt heads - or rather, Serena kept finding ways to take umbrage at Bernie’s strong-minded approach to things. Infuriated by what she saw at Bernie’s interference with her treatment of Jason, she had vented to the young man, who guilelessly repeated her words to Bernie.

“Auntie Serena says you're trying to criticise her because your own life is going so badly,” he explained.

Bernie was never quick to give much of herself away at work, but she was exhausted from several poor nights’ sleep: she had spent the morning replacing the mattress in her apartment, as the one the landlord had provided was too firm for her poor battered back, and the memory foam one she had ordered took a fair bit of manhandling. Her back had been troubling her all day, and her jaw tightened at Jason’s words. 

“Right. Well, you let her know I’m sorry she thinks that.”

Later in the office, Serena had apologised. She was finding it difficult to cope with the inevitable deterioration of Arthur’s health, and on top of that, she was feeling the burden of always being the one to tell Jason no. Sympathising with Bernie over her landlord’s cheapness when it came to mattresses, she even insisted on giving Bernie a massage, however awkward it felt.

Things were better between them after that - and then Arthur had died. 

***

Arthur’s funeral would go down as the stuff of legend, though it seemed unbearably awful at the time: leaving Morven there alone with the coffin as practically the whole congregation answered their pagers and left to attend the aftermath of a massive train crash. Legendary, too, was Bernie’s expert handling of the major incident, treating AAU as one big field hospital - “Kandahar style,” as Serena dubbed it. 

In the all too brief moments of respite through the day, Bernie confided in her co-lead that Marcus had persuaded Cameron and Charlotte to write statements supporting his case in their divorce, detailing her manifold failings as a wife and mother. “This feels like the beginning of something long and painful,” she said grimly as they pinned and bolted trauma patients back together. She was all too aware of the powerful bond between the ferociously devoted Mrs Khaled and her son Amir, whom Bernie was treating. She was painfully aware, too, of how little able she felt able to demonstrate that kind of love herself. She wondered just how much persuasion her children had needed to write the damning statements in support of their father, and just how irretrievably she might have lost them already.

The one bright spot of her day came at the end of the shift as Hanssen, with his deceptively stern manner, told her that he felt the hospital was not utilising her talents in the best way. Expecting yet another reprimand - perhaps a final one - for imposing Army discipline on an NHS environment, Bernie braced herself, but rather than chastisement, Hanssen was offering to ask the board for funds to enhance their trauma facilities.

“Have you run this past Serena?” she asked, wary of treading on her colleague’s all too sensitive toes. If Serena were not on board, she would not risk another row, another upset to their fragile entente. But to her astonishment, it had been Serena’s notion to pursue the funding. Finding Serena in the Peace Garden as she lit up a much needed cigarette, she came across Serena taking a moment to herself, and thanked her for the gesture - well, more than a gesture.

To her distress, Serena wept as the day caught up to her, and she put a hand tentatively on her shoulder.

“I just can't believe that Arthur’s dead. He was just a boy.” Serena crumpled into her, and Bernie pulled her into a one armed hug.

 _Mothers and sons, mothers and sons_ , Bernie thought silently. She knew that Serena had a child, a daughter, but Arthur had held such a special place in her heart, she knew. She herself felt in danger of losing her own son through her past mistakes, her cowardice: she was no Mrs Khaled to fight tooth and nail through her own reserve, through Marcus’s contempt. And Serena, too, had lost a surrogate son. Her arm tightened around Serena’s shoulder and she gave her a firm little shake, as though to say, _buck up, old thing_.

“Come on. I think we need a drink.”

Serena and Bernie sat together at the bar in Albie’s as Dominic gave his extemporised eulogy, so different from the formal speech he had prepared for the funeral. They sat in sad, companionable silence, and raised their glasses at the appropriate moments. It had been such a terrible day in so many ways, and Serena thought afterwards how very much worse it would have been had Bernie not been there with her, at the funeral, in AAU, in the Peace Garden.

***

The troubling subject of mothers and sons reared its head again in the worst way for Bernie a week or so later, as she saw the name on an admission form following an RTC in which a pregnant woman had been badly injured. The driver of the vehicle that had hit her had been none other than her own son, Cameron, whom she had not seen for months. He was bloodied but unbowed, which was more than could be said for the pregnant woman. With no time to wait for Gynaecology to arrive, Bernie had gone in with an emergency laparotomy, and she and Serena had delivered the baby and massaged life into its tiny lungs.

Bernie cleaned his wounds carefully, cautiously - not like the gung ho trauma surgeon, but like the anxious, fearful mother she was. He showed thinly veiled contempt at the notion she might actually remember his growing up, and the conversation went from bad to worse as she asked, as she must ask, whether he had been drinking or taking drugs prior to driving. The police had arrived, and a witness had seen the car veering significantly before the crash. Buying time with an unnecessary CT scan, Bernie needled and cajoled until he confessed that he had not been driving, but was determined to cover for Keeley - once Bernie’s own Registrar who had known Cameron when he was a tiny thing - and who had been drunk driving. 

Cameron reeled under the force of his mother’s anger, but stood his ground. She was as animated as he head ever seen her, but the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. 

“If you’re found guilty of dangerous driving, that’s enough to get you banned from going to medical school,” she had impressed upon, determined that he would resume his studies. Frustrated and antagonised, little snippets of the truth began to emerge under her forceful questioning, and he admitted at last that he had not simply bumped into his former babysitter in a scuzzy pub.

“I was with her. I was there _with_ Keeley. We’re together and I really love her.”

Bernie stared at him, uncomprehending. “But she’s married.”

“Not happily,” he countered.

“Oh, well thats alright then,” she had sniped, but he wasn’t going to stand for her hypocrisy, and she could get no further with him, and he threatened darkly that she should exercise extreme caution if she wanted to maintain any sort of relationship with him. She fared no better calling on Keeley’s finer instincts, and Keeley had lashed out at her, suggesting that it was no coincidence that he was dating someone almost her own age, that he was still suffering the effects of her absence during his childhood. 

When Keeley collapsed with an undetected avulsed kidney, Bernie fought desperately not only to save the younger woman, but to steer Serena away from making the connection between the injury and the fact that it could only have been sustained if Keeley had been driving. Serena’s righteous anger was hard to bear, but losing her son would be immeasurably harder, and she dug her heels in, scrabbling frantically to purchase some sort of control of the situation.

“What would you do if it was Elinor, and she said she’d never speak to you again?” Bernie looked so lost, so frightened.

It was a low blow, but it struck home, and Serena held her silence with the police. “I wonder, though, if you have any appreciation of the trauma unit at all. Or me.”

Serena had walked away and left her standing there, ashamed and shaking.

***

Bernie stood unbending in the face of Cameron’s cold fury when he learned that she had spoken to the police after all, had told them the truth, and when his rage had blown itself out, she spoke calmly to him.

“You’re my son. You wanted me to tell the truth.”

Cameron was so very much like her: his urge to do the right thing and protect his lover stronger than his urge to do the morally right thing - well, there could be no question where he had learned those skewed priorities, she thought. But they were both braver now than they had been before, and he was brave enough to challenge her own truths, too.

“That woman, Alex. She came to our house. She’s the reason you and Dad are getting divorced. You had an affair with her.”

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“And now Alex has gone, someone new. I’ve seen you look at her in the same way.”

Following his glance, she recoiled in denial.

“Serena? No, no, Cameron - she’s a work colleague, she’s a friend.”

“All these years - you should have just told the truth, Mum - it would have been better for everyone.”

And she could not deny the truth of that, at least.

***

“You asked me what I would do if it were Elinor.” 

Serena had been processing the question, the whole situation, all afternoon, and as Bernie caught her on her way home, she told as much of her own truth as she understood

“I would do whatever it took to keep her close. That’s what love is, I suppose - defending the indefensible.” She was talking about defending a child - Cameron, Elinor - of course she was. But it felt to them both in the moment that there was something heavier in the statement. It hung there in the silence between them until Serena blinked. “Night.” She turned on her heel and made her way off the ward.

“Goodnight!” Bernie called after her, softly, hopefully. The tiny smile she risked was reflected in Serena’s face as she left for home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trauma unit opens - and Jason’s girlfriend Celia is its first patient, to Serena’s horrified apprehension. Meanwhile Bernie discovers that hell hat no fury like a middle aged man spurned. The two women take solace in each other’s company and a bottle of wine at the end of a trying day, and a thought occurs to Serena about how she might help Bernie out - once her current tenant has moved out, of course.

“I do love being Deputy CEO, but why all this paperwork?”

It was the morning of the opening of the Trauma Unit, and Serena was anxious that everything should go to plan, but there seemed to be so many things clamouring for her attention at the moment, and the armful of files and folders wasn’t going to resolve itself. The only contribution Fletch had to offer was more of the bloody stuff. She paused only to check in with Bernie, who was checking off her inventory in preparation for the big moment.

For Bernie’s part, as calm as she seemed outwardly, there was a steady thrum of excitement running through her at the thought of what they were about to do. She still couldn’t quite believe that she and Serena had overcome their initial difficulties to work so well together, and that Serena had practically gifted her with her very own trauma unit. Granted, it was small - just a single bay - but it was _hers_ , or rather theirs, together, to run as they saw fit with minimal interference from any other ward or department. It was the closest she had felt to being fully in control since resigning her commission.

Fletch took the words out of Serena’s mouth as he told Bernie that none of it would have happened without her, but her only response was a shy smile and a dry comment about making Mr Hanssen proud. Serena smiled affectionately at her, and with a little touch of her hand to Bernie’s arm, she was away to their shared office to make a start on the sheaf of papers in her arms.

Bernie caught up with her there an hour or so later, with one last form for her with the final details of the Trauma Unit. Serena signed it, and made her excuses for the afternoon, gesturing at the pile of admin that seemed to grow more quickly than she could address it, but even as she explained that she was planning to leave early, her phone rang, and she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“Jason - again. There’s some new girl he’s keen on, he wants to bring her for supper tonight. I’ve told him at least ten times that it’s not convenient, but tonight is fish and chips night; this girl loves fish… I’m afraid we had a massive row.”

Anything else she had been going to say was cut off short as Fletch stuck his head round the door, announcing that Hanssen was ready for the grand opening.

Hanssen’s speech was solemn but warm, and he acknowledge Bernie’s contribution, along with the strong support of Serena, but as Bernie stepped up to say a few words herself, her own phone rang, and glancing at it, her breath caught in her throat, and she excused herself without further ado, to Hanssen’s bewilderment and Serena’s consternation.

At Hanssen’s invitation, Serena stepped in and extemporised, having been to enough of these events to know the form. She wished Bernie were there to hear her own glowing praise of her friend, who really had achieved something marvellous with the trauma bay. She caught up with a harassed looking Bernie afterwards, and learned that the call was from her lawyer.

“I knew Marcus wasn’t going to go for mediation, but… the money’s flying out of our accounts and I’ve got to move fast. She wants to see me now, but I’ve told her it’s impossible.”

Serena spoke without hesitation. “Ring her back, tell her you’re on your way.” At Bernie’s protestations, she simply said, “Don’t forget, I am a fully paid up member of the embittered ex-wives club.” 

Fletch interrupted their hurried conversation to tell Serena that Jason had been calling repeatedly, and Serena’s exasperation with the young man grew.

“He has _got_ to learn that I’m not available twentyfour-seven!” she exclaimed.

But later, it became distressingly clear why he had been calling, and when the red Trauma Unit phone rang for the very first time, it was to announce the imminent arrival of a young woman who had been impaled on railings after a fall: Jason’s new girlfriend Celia had fallen trying to avoid his advances.

By the time Bernie returned, Hanssen had dropped yet more work on Serena, the police had turned up to interview Jason, and she had no idea how she was going to manage keeping the Trauma Unit going on its first day.

Bernie had only remembered after she had left to meet her lawyer that Serena had hoped to leave early today, but coming straight from her meeting, she was still in a state of heightened emotion, and walked back onto the ward mid-rant about Marcus and his miserliness. But the moment Serena let fly about the day she was having with matters domestic and professional, Bernie’s own troubles ceased to matter to her.

“Don’t worry about the red phone, I’m here now. Let’s get some fresh air, yes?”

Talking things through on the metal fire escape stairs, Bernie listened patiently to Serena’s catalogue of stress factors, and said very calmly, as though it were the most simple thing in the world, “You're just going to have to prioritise what’s important for you.”

Serena looked at her, unsure of whether to laugh or roll her eyes, but she knew that it was genuine - and good, advice. Could it really be that straightforward?

“Maybe you’re right. Thank you.”

Bernie inclined her head gravely, a little smile playing around her mouth. “You’re very welcome.”

One emergency surgery and a few frank conversations later, Celia was out of danger and Jason’s name had been cleared: he had contritely confessed to his aunt that he should have asked Celia’s permission before trying to kiss her on the lips. She watched as he presented the recovering girl with his carefully chosen gift of a butterfly necklace, and she mused aloud, “This is what it’s all about, saving lives; making a difference, and I’m damn good at it.”

Bernie was at her back, the calm, reassuring presence she had needed all day. “I’m not arguing with you.”

A note of warm determination entered Serena’s voice. “I love medicine and I love my family, and they both deserve my precious time far more than the board of this hospital.”

“Well no-one’s holding a gun to your head…” Bernie left the words hanging as she turned to give Serena space to think.

It was as much a challenge as an observation, and for the second time that day, Bernie’s words hit home as Serena realised how simple the equation really was, and what the solution was.

Serena’s resignation speech to Henrik was laced with a giddiness that she could not contain, and although she had been expecting him to try and talk her back into the role, he had been really very sweet about it, and the evening found her in Albie’s with Jason and Bernie, the two quite unexpected and quite unpredictable cornerstones of her life.

“Well, here’s to my new found freedom from the tyranny of the board room - thanks you to you two.”

Bernie smiled at her slyly from beneath her long fringe. She had showered and changed at the end of her shift, and Serena thought she had never looked lovelier. “No, that was you Serena, I just lit the touchpaper.”

Jason, finally recovered from the shock of the day, was keen to re-establish his familiar routine and get home for fish and chips, but Serena bought five more minutes for the price of a pickled egg and a giant gherkin. She and Bernie exchanged amused glances, their gaze lingering and warm. Jason left them to it and found Jasmine to explain that when he had likened her to a toucan, it was not meant as an insult - _long story_ , Serena mouthed to Jasmine - and she suddenly remembered that Bernie had ben as stressed today as she had been.

“Oh - how did you get on with your lawyer? Has she managed to stem the flow of your hard earned pennies into Marcus’s pocket?”

Bernie shook her head slightly.

“Mm, I don’t know. It all seems very touch and go. I mean, if it comes to it, it will all be sorted out in the divorce court hearing, but I’d much rather do it as amicably as we can - though goodness knows that’s not a word he seems to know at the moment. My main worry is keeping up payments on my flat. I went for something right at the top end of what I could afford, and if I have to tighten the belt too far, it would mean having to look for somewhere cheaper.”

“Oh, Bernie, I’m kicking myself for not offering you my place when it came up. I’m so sorry - I could have spared you all this worry.”

Bernie shook her head. “Not a good idea - we talked about that, remember? Imagine if I had to come to you cap in hand for a new mattress, or whatever.”

“Hah! Funny you should say that. Well, it’s too late now, anyway. My current tenant has another three or four months left on the six month lease - after that it’s month by month. See how you get on with the financial stuff, and if you’re still in a hole in a couple of month’s time, I can always serve notice on them.”

Smiling gratefully, Bernie shook her head again. “I’m not really in a hole. I just need to get on top of things, get everything signed off with the banks - which Susanna’s pretty much got sorted out, thankfully. I don’t know what I’d have done without her today - or you. I can’t imagine many people would have told me to go just as the unit was opening. I’m so grateful, Serena, I really am.”

“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?” Serena said simply, as simply as Bernie had put things into perspective for her today. “Look, just bear it in mind about the flat, alright? I know we’ve talked about not wanting to be in each other’s pockets, but - it’s there if you need it - and so am I.”

It was only Jason’s insistence that it was time to go that broke the spell, and Bernie watched as they left together. She swirled the last of her wine around her glass, and went to join the rest of her team for another before heading home, but the warmth and _rightness_ she had felt sitting with Serena and Jason remained with her all the way home.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friendship between Bernie and Serena is so easy and comfortable now, and Serena can’t remember when she last had so much fun at work. But when a patient attacks one of their own, the fun stops, and the aftermath of Fletch’s surgery sends her running scared.

It felt like something of a golden age, those few weeks on AAU, as the Trauma Unit found its feet, and Serena and Bernie found new ways of working together. All the prickliness of their early friendship seemed to have smoothed out into a comfortable symbiosis, and they worked as well out of theatre as in it.

Serena saw with affection how kindly Bernie treated Morven on her return to work - treating her to coffee and a Napoleon cake in a thoughtful acknowledgement of Arthur’s preoccupation with the flawed hero, and she shared advice and insight on the soldier she was treating. When Morven found a memory stick in Arthur’s locker, Bernie and Serena were among the AAU family who gathered round the screen to laugh and cry as Arthur and Morven sang _I Got You Babe_ , and Serena shook her head fondly at Bernie’s assertion that Morven sounded “just like Dusty Springfield.”

These little moments of warm affection and shared humour seemed to come more and more frequently now, as their friendship grew and ripened. Bernie was probably the one person in the world who could get away with calling a speech of Serena’s “a bit Nurembergy,” and she bumped Serena’s shoulder after wards with a murmured “Great speech, Fraülein,”

Professionally, they had found a balance between disagreement and discussion; rivalry and challenge. When a patient with odd symptoms but no discernable neurological cause presented, Serena had wanted to discharge him, convinced that he was a time waster, but Bernie pressed for further checks until she came up with a solution that was as brilliant as it was absurd. Diagnosing electromagnetic hypersensitivity, she had described a very modern malaise that was ruining the life of a man who sold broadband: an allergy to wifi.

Serena was secretly impressed, but watched in amused affection as Bernie, explaining her theory, had drawn a child’s impression of an MRI scanner. When Bernie explained why he had only been able to get a good night’s sleep in his car, she had simply begged in a deadpan tone, “Please don’t draw a car.” Undaunted, Bernie had gone on to suggest a novel solution to what she called a very contemporary allergy: that he should use his hard-earned broadband savings to buy a barn in France, where no wifi would reach him.

That had been a good day: the mystery of the broadband allergy their most pressing case, and Bernie and Serena had thrived on bouncing off each other’s wit. Work was so much more rewarding when they were on shift together, and Serena couldn’t think when she had last had as much _fun_ on the ward. They leaned against the nurses’ station afterwards, shoulders touching, wearing matching smirks, and Jason was quite right when he remarked, “Neither of you move very quickly, do you?” For why move when they were so very comfortable with each other?

It was hard to remember when they had last finished a shift together without seeing the evening out in Albie’s, and tonight was no exception. Surprised to be handed a little box each with three LED lights, Serena had declared that she would spend Traffic Light Night on red (“for shiraz,”) and Bernie followed suit, flicking the little switch to announce her unavailability for the evening. Their own company was quite sufficient, thank you.

***

Then, at the very beginning of September, something happened that shattered their easy familiarity for good. 

“Where’s Major Wolfe?” 

Bernie had treated James Fielding some weeks previously, removing his gall bladder. It had been a straightforward case of infection, though he had believed it to be a result of his water supply being poisoned. Since then, he had been what Bernie diplomatically called “kind enough to keep in touch,” and she had been mildly amused by his tendency towards adopting conspiracy theories. She was dismissive now about his theory of misinformation about the helicopter accident which had filled AAU today, focussing instead on the young woman whose leg she and Serena had been forced to amputate.

“She’s not much older than our own daughter,” Serena had said, her eyes anguished above the surgical mask. Bernie had thought, _an odd slip of the tongue - imagine if she and I_ had _co-parented - might Charlotte and Cameron be happier now? And Elinor less wild?_ But she had kept Serena on track with her usual calm voice, her steadying manner, and they had done what needed to be done. Bernie reprimanded herself afterwards for giving rein to her thoughts about Serena. Cameron had been right, of course, when he had noticed the way she looked at Serena, but that was very much a one way street, she knew.

Later, back on the ward, Fletch had suggested calling a psych consult on James Fielding, concerned about his obsession with Ms Wolfe - _ah - that’s the Major to you_ \- but Bernie had brushed if off, reluctant to label him as a risk. Fletch had remained deeply suspicious of the man, and Bernie had eventually relented, but by then psych were busy elsewhere, and his assessment was postponed.

By this stage, Fielding had developed a theory that another patient, Stephanie Simms was there to silence Bernie, and overhearing Simms protesting her love for Connie Beauchamp, he sprang to the conclusion - obvious only to him - that she was talking about Bernie. The next time anyone checked his bed, it was empty, save for the notebook he had been furtively scribbling in all day.

It was Raf who found the notebook, and he alerted Bernie straight away to the graphic and disturbing images of broken, bleeding bodies; faces split open by grinning, screaming maws, and words of hatred, fear, and unmistakeable paranoia inked over and over again.

By the time security found him, it was too late, and the screwdriver he had stolen from a maintenance trolley had penetrated Fletch’s heart. There was no question as to who would operate on him, and they worked as smoothly together as they ever had, Serena knowing Bernie’s mind before it was even made up; Bernie predicting Serena’s every move, and they worked around and alongside each other as though there were no doubts, no complications, no emotional considerations to this case. 

Afterwards, though, they sat on the floor in theatre, shoulder to shoulder, arm against warm arm, utterly drained. The theatre emptied around them, and they stayed undisturbed by colleagues who knew better than to approach them.

“This is all my fault.”

“What?” Bernie’s sudden statement had fallen into the silence of the room like a stone into a still pool, and Serena was bewildered by it.

“He pushed for an assessment and I fobbed him off.”

Serena shook her head. “How could you have known things would turn out like this?”

She tried to tell Bernie, persuade her that none of this was her fault, but Bernie was trapped in a prison of her own thoughts, and close to tears. “Our friend and colleague is fighting for his life.”

Turning her body to face her own dearest friend, her finest colleague, Serena made very deliberate eye contact, and said firmly, “And he would be the first person to say that you are the most fantastic, fearless doctor in this entire hospital.”

For the longest moment, Berne looked with tear-filled eyes into the warm, reassuring smile of the woman she loved, and all at once, she could contain it no longer. She leaned across the small space between them, and brought her lips to Serena’s, her hand hovering by her neck. All the weeks, months of longing, of fear, of holding back were suddenly swept away as she felt Serena’s lips against her own, pliant and warm and wonderful. 

She pulled back for an instant, her heart thundering at the look on Serena’s beautiful, tired, bewildered face. The physician in her knew that a heartbeat could not last as long as that frozen moment, but it felt as though her heart had stopped entirely, and then Serena came to meet her, pulling her in, reaching for her with her hands, her lips, her everything.

Long minutes passed, and they were lost in each other; the day, the drama, Fletch, all forgotten as they explored each other without thought, just sensation upon sensation as they kissed. Then a trolley rumbled by outside the theatre and the spell was broken. Serena started back, a hand to her flushed cheek.

“I’m sorry, I - I have to go. Jason…”

Bernie sat with her head in her hands as the theatre door flapped to and fro.

***

At a quarter to midnight, Serena Campbell sat alone in the kitchen of her leafy detached, an empty wine bottle at her elbow, her hand curled round another, half full. Jason had long since gone to bed, having given up on getting any sense out of his aunt tonight.

Less than hundred yards away, Berenice Wolfe nursed half a bottle of whiskey and a heart full of regret.

Neither of them slept that night.

***

 _Thank God today was a day off_ , Bernie thought. She didn’t know how she was going to face Serena after yesterday. She had lain awake for hours last night, unable to get the vision of Serena’s face out of her head: not the kind, loving, friendly face that had called her fearless and fantastic, nor yet the stricken face that she had looked into for a moment before Serena kissed her in return, but the shocked face as they had broken apart, Serena’s eyes landing anywhere but on Bernie’s.

She didn’t know how long she had sat on the floor of the theatre, but eventually someone had come in to clean after Fletch’s surgery, and she had trudged wearily to her car, stopping only to pick up a ready meal which she ate mechanically before settling in with a bottle and a playlist to try and drown out her self-accusing inner voice. She had eventually fallen asleep sometime around dawn, and when she woke, it had gone midday. She dragged herself out of bed and dressed after a quick shower, but couldn’t bring herself to face anything more than a cup of coffee, and she took it outside into the early autumn afternoon. She sat on the little bench in her yard and lit up, listening to the birds in the trees, and the _snip, snip, snip_ of her neighbour pottering about in the garden.

***

Serena was deadheading roses as though each dead bloom was a memory she could excise and dispose of. 

_Snip!_ The misjudged snog she had forced upon Bernie after the sweet kiss her friend had given her.  
_Snip!_ The look of regret on Bernie’s face as they had broken apart.  
_Snip!_ Her own stupid cowardice in running away without explaining herself to Bernie.

The vicious pruning was doing nothing to obscure the memories, but there was some poetry in the thought that these blooms, at least, would flower again after she had destroyed them. She doubted the same would be true of the most important friendship in her life.

From over the fence, she caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. She tutted loudly, but she had promised herself she wouldn’t interfere with the tenant, and she made a note to ask the agency to issue a reminder about the smoke-free policy. What did it matter, anyway? The tenant could stay or go, it was all the same to her. It wasn’t as though she would be saving the lease for Bernie now.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing how awkward Serena feels after Fletch’s surgery, and what followed it, Bernie is quick to reassure her that it won’t happen again. But Serena realises that it’s not what she wanted to hear, and she makes an impulsive decision.

By the time they eventually saw each other again at work a few days later, Bernie at least had ordered her thoughts and feelings into some semblance of normality. Emotions had been running high: she had overstepped a mark, but they were both adults, and if Serena was really as horrified by the incident as it appeared, they would both call upon their professionalism to overcome any awkwardness. Failing that, as much as it would pain her to leave the Trauma Unit behind, she had taken enough new postings in her career to know when and how to move on.

She had composed a text to Serena the day after Fletch had been stabbed - the day after she had made such a monumental mistake - but she had not sent it. Every now and then she had opened it, changed a word here or there, and closed it again without sending it. Would Serena want to hear from her? Given that she received no word from her, either of anger, of apology, and certainly not of encouragement, she rather thought that silence was Serena’s weapon of choice. 

And it was largely silence that reigned as Bernie slid into the closing lift that morning, only to find Serena already waiting, looking as though she wished the lift would plummet to the basement, taking her with it. Bernie, on the other hand, stood with her hands clasped before her, and looking so calm and collected and _gorgeous_ that Serena felt quite at sea. After an awkward exchange that Serena wished she could bite back, Bernie brought them back onto safer ground as they expressed their mutual relief over Fletch’s progress towards recovery.

Serena couldn’t get out of the lift soon enough, but putting space between herself and Bernie did nothing to remove her from her thoughts. Indeed, Henrik had to repeat himself several times as they discussed the new zero-tolerance to violence campaign, and Serena admitted that her mind wasn’t altogether focussed on implementing new procedures. The truth was rather different, though, and she could no more stop thinking about certain other _new procedures_ now than she had been able to at home.

To her credit, Bernie tried to address the awkwardness between them, but Serena blustered through, brushing it off as a mere dalliance, and nothing new for her. Once Bernie had left to schedule the operation she had consulted her about, Serena leaned against the door of her office and tugged at her hair in mortification. Where on earth had _Stepney_ come from?

Had Bernie known what she was doing, Serena wondered? She sat at her desk and regarded Bernie’s empty chair.

“Did you absolutely have to do that thing just now with your fingers?” she asked aloud. “I mean, as if I haven’t been thinking about those fingers and what you might do with them for the last few days… And so bloody noble as well! _You_ apologising to _me!_ Oh, God, and Stepney - what was I thinking? You must think I’m quite mad.”

She paused for a moment.

“I’m talking to a chair. I _am_ quite mad.”

But she found herself doing the same thing with Fletch as she checked his vitals a little later, voicing her thoughts to his prone, unconscious form rather than to Bernie’s chair, only to find herself quizzing him when he came to, to make sure that he hadn’t heard her melodramatic declaration of “Serena Campbell: _Lesbian._ ” 

She finally managed to say actual words, about their actual kiss, to Berenice actual Wolfe a while later, with an awkward - _hah! Word of the day_ , she thought - chat in the corridor, and although she managed to insult Bernie any number of times with her stumbled confessions of wishing herself dead, of being terrified, Bernie had made it so easy for her. As they operated together on the pseudo aneurysm of the splenic artery that had been chasing them all day, Serena even managed to pluck up the courage to ask her for a drink later.

She wished afterwards that she had been a little more specific about her intentions, for when Bernie joined her in their office, it appeared that she had already rehearsed the let down. She was looking utterly lovely in a crisp white shirt, her blonde hair loose and shining in the light of the desk lamps Serena had switched on as mood lighting, but as soon as she opened her mouth, the reconciliation Serena had planned dissolved in a wash of disappointment. Bernie pointed out the very real, but, Serena felt, not insurmountable issues that they would need to overcome, and she found herself drinking, very much against her will, to keeping their partnership confined to theatre.

Determined to make things normal again, or as near normal as they could be, Serena plucked up the courage to offer Bernie a lift home at the end of the day. Equally keen to maintain their friendship, Bernie accepted gladly, and they chatted about the safer parts of their day, mostly about Fletch. Bernie gave the occasional direction - _left here, third right_ \- and Serena noted with amusement, “Oh, you must be fairly near me, isn’t that funny? All this time, and we’re practically neighbours! What’s the address?” 

But just then, Serena’s phone buzzed into life, and glancing down, Bernie said, “Your daughter, I think - are you expecting a call?” Serena wasn’t, but she popped the bluetooth earpiece in, and took the call. Bernie could only hear Serena’s side of the conversation, and she couldn’t work out if it was urgent or not from her reactions. Glancing in the rear view mirror, Serena pulled over to the kerb.

“Calm down, darling. Tell me where you are now - I’ll come and get you right away.” 

Without waiting for Serena to finish the call, Bernie unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the car door. She mouthed at Serena, “Just go - I’ll walk home from here,” and without a glance back, she pushed the car door shut and walked briskly towards home.

Elinor’s so-called emergency turned out to be cashflow related, to Serena’s exasperation and relief, and half an hour later she drew up to her drive and put the car safely in the garage.

***

Fletch’s recovery was not without its moments of drama, and Bernie had taken a tremendous risk in his treatment, but it had paid off, and although it would be a while before he was back on the right side of the curtain, he was very much on the mend. With one thing and another, Bernie and Serena seemed to keep missing each other despite their shared office, and the day Françoise Yeates was admitted was the first time they had spent any significant time together since their toast to mere friendship.

Things had been easier between them, perhaps _because_ they hadn’t been in each other's company as much, and Bernie was glad she had cleared the air, however hard it had been to see that particular glimpse of happiness receding into the distance. While she still felt a little doleful about what might have been, her day was brightened no end by Ric Griffin’s poorly concealed attraction to Mrs Yeates, and she and Serena spent the morning teasing him to his face and gossiping about him behind his back.

“Still, it’s nice to see romance blossoming,” Serena said, as carelessly as she could manage, which was not at all. The hesitation in Bernie’s response - another tiny smile - gave her cause to hope, and she didn’t know whether to be frustrated or grateful when Ric barrelled in to talk about Mrs Yeates and her symptoms.

Serena couldn’t stop herself from teasing him, but by the time they met in Albie’s after work, she relented enough to drop a hint or two about her own love life. She had invited Bernie to join them, and although she wasn’t up to it this evening, she promised, _Soon_ , and the look she gave Serena allowed her to hope that she didn’t just mean for a drink. Serena could keep this new thing between them to herself no longer, and she gave Ric more than a hint, admitting that there was someone: someone who worked on AAU, no less.

“Who’s the lucky man?” he asked, leaning in with eyes glinting at the promise of gossip, and she could see his brain ticking over, riffling through every male colleague on the ward. 

Cocking her head to one side and not quite meeting his eyes, she said, “Well, it’s not a man…” and before he quite had time to adjust to the notion, she smiled shyly and said, “It’s Bernie.”

They drank to another roll of the dice, to the future; _a l’amour_.

***

When she got home, she went straight to the mirror in the hallway and regarded her glowing reflection. She had said it out loud. She had said it three times now, in fact: to an empty chair; to an unconscious man, and now to Ric. _She wanted Bernie_. There was no doubt in her mind any more, and she was as sure as she could be that it was what Bernie wanted, too. She thought that she might never sleep again, so keyed up and excited was she about what their next meeting would bring, but in the event, she slept better that night than she had done in weeks.

***

Over her morning coffee, Serena came to a decision. She knew rationally that she should wait until things were more certain with Bernie, and that she had promised to do everything concerning the flat by proxy, but once her mind was made up, she didn’t want to wait another minute. Like ripping a plaster off, she thought. Of course, Bernie would not want to move in with her at once, and she would be right to hesitate given their shared history of ups and downs, but that was what was so perfect about her particular set up.

Double checking the calendar to be certain she had calculated correctly, she decided that there was no time like the present to act upon her decision. She drained her cup, made sure she looked presentable, and locking the front door behind her, she went round the corner and walked confidently up the path of the granny annexe.

She rapped smartly on the door, and as she heard the latch click and the handle turn, she spoke up before she could change her mind.

“Look, I know this is totally out of the blue, and I’m very sorry, but I wanted to give you as much notice as possible. I’m afraid it might come as rather a shock, but - Bernie!”

The door was open now, and before her eyes like an absolute vision of everything lovely stood Bernie Wolfe herself.

“What are you doing here?” Serena asked stupidly.

Bernie was as stymied as she was. “Well, I - How did you know where I lived?”

“What? You - you live here? In my mother’s granny annexe? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?” In spite of herself, Serena felt a little stab of resentment that Bernie had hidden this from her, but Bernie shook her head vehemently, her hair swishing about her face.

“Granny annexe? I didn’t know - it was all done through the agency! I didn’t want to have dealings with my landlord after this awful woman said she wanted to be my _very bestest friend_ … oh, goodness.” And suddenly seeing the absurdity of the situation, she laughed as only she could, a great irresistible bark that couldn’t help but pull Serena in to laugh with her.

The tension broken, they laughed until they could hardly breathe, and grasping her hand, Bernie brought her inside the flat, and pulled herself together enough to speak.

“Hang on - if you didn’t know I lived here, why _are_ you here?”

Wiping tears of laughter former eyes, Serena confessed, “Well, I was going to give you notice to quit, but…”

Bernie dropped her hand as though it was burning her, and she took a shocked step back into the room, the back of her knees hitting the sofa.

“No - no - not _you_ , I didn’t know it was you! I was going to ask the tenant to move out so I could offer the flat to you!”

Recovering her equilibrium a little, Bernie shook her head in puzzlement. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“Well, I knew you were renting, and I know you’ve been a bit restless lately after… well, lately, and I wanted to be able to offer you a bit of stability, to keep you near me.”

“Keep me… near you?” Bernie sounded a little like a child whose greatest wish had been granted, but who expected it to be snatched away again.

Serena moved as though to take her hand again, but at the last minute, she twisted her own fingers together in a nervous wringing gesture. 

“Look, I know I said I was terrified before… but I’ve thought of nothing else since then. And I couldn’t bear it if we didn’t act because you thought I didn’t feel the way you do - if you still do? Because I know you were doing the noble thing, you _know_ how we look at each other sometimes - don’t tell me you don’t feel it too?”

The September sunlight streamed in through the window, turning Bernie’s hair to spun gold, and she looked utterly angelic. She stood very close to Serena now, and her voice when it came was little more than a whisper. 

“Serena, I…”

Serena stepped even closer, both entirely sure and completely uncertain as to what she was about to do.

“It’s just that -”

Her body finished the sentence for her, as she closed the distance between them, her arms coming up around Bernie’s shoulders, a hand finding its way into her hair, and her lips - oh, her lips! - meeting Bernie’s in the kiss they had both needed to share for so long.

There was no shock this time; no doubt, no guilt, and long moments later as they drew apart to take each other in, although Serena’s catch of breath was accompanied by a reflexive “sorry,” Bernie shook her head in a joyful, disbelieving laugh.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.”

***

Henrik Hanssen was pleased to see Ms Campbell and Ms Wolfe arriving into work together the next morning. Evidently they had discovered that they were closer neighbours than they had realised, and had very sensibly arranged to car share. Serena had gone straight to Pulses while Bernie parked the car, and as they met up again in the cafe, Serena waved a paper bag at her co-lead.

“This is medicinal, and I blame you,” she winked.

Henrik overheard something about an Italian restaurant, an extensive wine list, and smiled a tight Hanssen smile as the two women shook hands in some private joke they shared.

“Ms Wolfe,” he called, interrupting their conversation. “I wonder if I might interest you in a rather unique opportunity. An old colleague of mine is looking for someone to head up a new trauma unit in the Ukraine: the first of its kind. It should be operational by the end of the year.” He handed her a glossy brochure, and she leafed though it.

“It looks incredible,” she said, clearly impressed. Glancing up, she saw Serena’s anxious face, carefully schooled into what she obviously hoped was a neutral expression. She looked back at the brochure, and smiled, handing it back to Hanssen.

“But I’m sorry, Henrik,” she said confidently. “Chicken Kiev’s off.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art: The Tenant of Campbell Hall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15932306) by [Kayryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayryn/pseuds/Kayryn)




End file.
